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E-book
Author Staples, James, 1966- author.

Title Sacred cows and chicken Manchurian : the everyday politics of eating meat in India / James Staples
Published Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 229 pages) : color illustrations
Series Culture, place, and nature
Culture, place, and nature.
Contents Introduction : sacred cows and chicken Manchurian -- Differential histories of meat-eating in India -- Everyday South Indian foodways -- From cattle shed to dinner plate -- Cattle slaughter, beef-eating, and ambivalence -- Health, the environment, and the riseof the chicken -- From caste to class in food -- Conclusion : taking on sacred cows
Summary "Observance of what people in present-day India eat and do not eat, the styles and contexts within which they do so, and the disparities between rhetoric and everyday action prompt vital questions concerning what it is to be Indian in the early twenty-first century. The current "beef situation" exposes, like no other issue, the central fault lines that run across contemporary Indian society. Sacred Cows and Chicken Manchurian explores contemporary cattle slaughter and beef-eating in India and considers what has led to the apparent turn away from the hitherto secularist approach of post-independence India. The book draws on ethnographic research in both rural and urban South India with domestic cattle owners, brokers, butchers, and meat eaters. It brings nuance to existing accounts by journalists, historians, and others by charting how ordinary people navigate the current febrile political climate in their everyday lives. In doing so, it avoids an overly simplistic binary opposition between those who oppose the slaughter of cattle and those who view beef consumption as a fundamental right. Locating debates and actions concerning beef eating in relation to caste and community, the book offers a fine-grained exploration of the current situation as it is experienced on the ground, comprehensively locating it within the wider anthropology of food and eating in the region"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on October 08, 2020)
Subject Food habits -- India
Meat industry and trade -- Social aspects -- India
Meat -- Religious aspects -- Hinduism.
Food habits
Meat -- Religious aspects -- Hinduism
India
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020006818
ISBN 9780295747897
0295747897