A Garland of Bones: Child Runaways in India

by Jonah Steinberg

Overview

An intimate portrait of India’s child runaways, and the sociopolitical forces shaping their lives

This intimate portrait examines the tracks, journeys, and experiences of child runaways in northern India. Jonah Steinberg situates children’s decisions to leave home and flee for the city in their larger cultural, social, and historical contexts, and considers histories of landlessness and debt servitude in narratives of child dislocation. The resulting work is an original perspective on the sociological trends in postcolonial India and a unique treatment of a population of individuals who live on the margin of society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300222807
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Series:	Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Jonah Steinberg is associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Vermont and author of Isma’ili Modern: Globalization and Identity in a Muslim Community. He lives in Burlington, VT.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Nabil's Predicament An Introduction 1

2 Home and the World Village and Child Up Close 32

3 Of Crisis, Calamity, and Village Fabrics 81

4 Death and the Urchin 115

5 Runaway Train Railway Children and Normative Spatialities 154

6 Remand to Rehabilitation Urban Institutions and Rural Children 192

7 Concluding Thoughts, Final Words, and Big Pictures Indian Runaways in Larger Frames 247

Notes 301

References 313

Index 333

Editorial Reviews

Jonah Steinberg’s book will find its place among the very best contemporary studies of lives on the edges of political, social, and religious worlds in contemporary South Asia.…It has the marks of a classic.”—Steven P. Hopkins, author of The Flight of Love: A Messenger Poem of Medieval South India and Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Swarthmore College

“Jonah Steinberg brings his keen gift for vivid storytelling to this intimate chronicle of lives lived on the absolute margins of society.  This is a bold and important book.”—Nelson DeMille, author of The Cuban Affair

“It is a rare ethnography that links history and power relations to present day vulnerability and suffering as subtly as this one. Steinberg writes with compassion and intelligence about runaway children in North India, and offers us a wealth of lapidary insights into childhood, poverty, mobility, and class in a world which previous ethnographers have barely touched. This is a moving and important book by a powerful new voice in anthropology.”—Arjun Appadurai, author of The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition

“A Garland of Bones is an unforgettable book. Its portrayal of runaway children, the vulnerability and tenacity of their lives, as well as its critique of institutions and of the forms critique itself takes in the social sciences, is unparalleled in its ethnographic depth and theoretical reach.”—Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University

“At the heart of Jonah Steinberg’s deep dive into the world of runaways in India are his affecting—even beautiful—interviews with the children themselves. This is a studious book but also one of great compassion.”—Joe Sacco, author of Palestine

From the Publisher