Global Issues, Local Contexts: The Rabi Das of West Bengal

# This book is an ethnographic study of a community of leather workers (the Rabi Das), and their transformations under global capitalism. # The author writes about the experiences of this community within the broader context of India s economic liberalisation as well as in the local system of class and cultural relations in Bengali society. # Divided into three sections, the various chapters in the book provide a detailed analysis of the changing nature of their conditions of employment, education, lifestyle and survival strategies. # Despite six decades of efforts towards self-improvement, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase uncovers the process of Rabi Das cultural and economic marginalisation. # This paperback edition also has a new Preface. # The text in the book is also interspersed with suitable area-maps (of Krishnagar/ Krishnanagar, inhabited by the Rabi Das community) and detailed tables based on the author s fieldwork.