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ID:
144359
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Summary/Abstract |
In the introduction to this special section, we present six ethnographic articles that explore the sites and forms of ‘non-sociological sociality’ in South Asia. Set in urban spaces where the familiar vectors of relations, such as ethnicity, class, gender or age, may be attenuated, the articles examine how social and political entanglement is suffused with ambiguity, indeterminacy, provisionality and contingency. In these sites, opaque conditions, open-ended play, double meanings and interpretive scrutiny abound. Spaces such as the racecourse, the bazaar, the university campus or the nocturnal street suggest undetermined conditions and fleeting collaborations which have a wider bearing on cross-cutting forms of sociality in South Asia.
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2 |
ID:
144362
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Summary/Abstract |
This paper examines male friendship at the Delhi racecourse as an example of a sociality amidst an urban South Asian setting defined by uncertainty and the absence of fixed identities. It argues that such friendships are ‘relationships of chance’, embodying and reflecting the contingency of the gambling arena, rather than sociological or ritual notions which may condition friendship in other settings. This hyper-competitive and hyper-social space configures both the possibility and impossibility of friendship. The paper thus provides insights into how relating to others happens in a heterogeneous, fluid context that is over-determined mainly by a shared passion for self-enrichment.
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