Religion, Culture and Society of Indian “Tribal” (Adivasi) Communities

Indian “tribal” societies – I use quotation marks here as the term is generally contested – make up some 10% of the Indian population and have rather been an under-studied phenomenon after Indian Independence, certainly in comparison to the anthropological focus of caste and Hinduism. With reference to Central India, for example, only a handful of monographs based on long-term ethnographic research had appeared between 1947 and the 1990s. More recently, the state of scholarship in the field has improved and a number of substantial ethnographic contributions have been published during the last ten years.

This Research Project aims to provide a multidisciplinary platform for academic exchange and research collaboration for scholars working on Adivasi communities. Adivasi communities are studied with reference to various themes, be it religion, kinship, political or environmental issues, and the cluster gives no preference for any particular theme or approach. On the contrary it hopes to stimulate cooperation between scholars working on various aspects and from diverging perspectives.

Collaborative interdisciplinary research projects on Cereal Cultures

These projects deal with the meanings and cultural dynamics around millets and other cereals, especially (but not only) among Adivasi communities of Odisha.
For more information see: https://cerealcultures.com/
See also a recent poster about the NWO research project.