PDF Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi; Howard Winant in History

Description

The book engages with an urgent and disturbing question: how are ordinary people readied to willingly kill others in the name of a cause? It compares narratives of actors in domains often assumed incomparable in academic discourse: Naxalites studied within the framework of peasant rebellion; social movement or recently even terrorism; and Hindu rioters viewed mostly under the broad rubric of ethnic violence. The book draws from the author’s extensive and painstaking fieldwork; first with Naxalite armed cadre across seven districts in Jharkhand and Bihar; and later with participants in the 2002 riots in Gujarat. Viewed from the standpoint of the perpetrator or foot soldier; the book bridges hitherto sacrosanct boundaries between left-extremist and communal violence; making available a whole new dimension to the study of social mobilisation; the politics of identity and; with far reaching implications; discovers deep commonalities in the life-worlds and aspirations of those motivated to kill in the name of a cause in apparently disparate contexts. The findings of this compelling analysis of human actors ― ordinary people driven to extraordinary violence ― will interest the informed general reader; as also those interested in sociology; politics; violence studies; ethnic movements; Naxalism; policy studies; and peace conflict studies.