Aparna Rao

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Aparna Rao
Jat'[note 1] (Ph.D.)[1]
Doctoral advisorXavier de Planhol[1]
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineEthnography
Ethnology
InstitutionsFormer co-chairperson, Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences

Aparna Rao (February 3, 1950 – June 28, 2005) was a German

anthropogeography, ethnology, and Islamic studies. Rao taught anthropology at the University of Cologne, serving for a brief time as chair of the Department of Ethnology at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University
, Germany.

Rao's research focused on

Choice
award.

Early life and education

Aparna Rao was born in New Delhi, India to

professor emeritus from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Cologne, Germany.[4][5][6]

Rao studied French literature, linguistics,

Romanes, and Urdu.[1]

Academic career

Rao taught anthropology as an associate professor at the University of Cologne.[7] She became a member of the Société Asiatique in 1981.[8] From 1993 to 1995, she was chair of the Department of Ethnology at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany.[1][9][5] From 1995 to 1998, she served as the co-chairperson of the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences, along with Michael Casimir.[5] She had been on the board of directors of the Association of Gypsy Lore Studies.[10] She was editor-in-chief of the Nomadic Peoples[note 2] journal.[9]

Between 1995 and 1997, she was invited as a

Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris.[5]

Research

Rao performed field studies on the farming,

gypsies. In 2004, the four clans' total estimated population in Afghanistan was 7,000.[15] Between 1980 and 1992, she performed ethnographic research on the agency and autonomy within the Bakarwals whose traditions have incorporated elements from those of the Pashtuns and Punjabis.[16]

Rao's research works included the impact of the

conflict in Kashmir on the environment and lives of people,[17] and from 1991 to 1994, she did research on the ethnic, religious, and political conflicts in Jammu and Kashmir.[1] Rena C. Gropper of Hunter College noted that Rao was one of the few anthropologists who had carried out research studies in the midst of groups who draw their basic livelihood from other cultural groups.[18] The term "peripatetic peoples", that was coined by her, has become a part of academic terminology.[19] She defined the peripatetic peoples as "the endogamous groups who employ regular spatial mobility as an economic strategy".[20]

Written work

In Les Ġhorbat d'Afghanistan. Aspects Économiques d'un Groupe Itinérant 'Jat,'

Jat people of Afghanistan, with a focus on the Ghorbat people.[21][22] Asta Olesen suggested that in the book, Rao had filled "an almost complete gap in the knowledge of the ethnic puzzle of Afghanistan".[21] According to University of North Carolina's Jon W. Anderson, the book made accessible the 19 months of fieldwork presented in it.[22]

Gropper suggested that her book The Other Nomads: Peripatetic Minorities in Cross–Cultural Perspective (1987) lacked structure and relevancy to future work.[18]

While reviewing Culture, Creation, and Procreation: Concepts of Kinship in South Asian Practice, a book that was co–authored by Rao in 2000, Ann Grodzins Gold of Syracuse University pointed out that a large proportion of its content had been drawn from anthropological field studies concluded or initiated in the 1970s and early 1980s and that the book lacked "new ethnography".[23] Gold also said that a one-sided presentation of cultural essentialism didn't give much credence to a postcolonial interpretation. She noted that the authors substantially covered the "geographic and ethnographic contexts" of South Asia.[23]

Rao's coauthored book Customary Strangers: New Perspectives on Peripatetic Peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, published in 2004, was a set of mainly ethnographic essays surrounding the role of interactions between settled and displaced peoples. In one of the essays, she analyzed research conducted on some Afghanistani nomadic people in 1975–1978, their self-perception, and how they were perceived by the sedentary populace of Afghanistan.[19] In the book, Rao built off previous work conducted by Georg Simmel. University of Pittsburgh's Robert M. Hayden reviewed the book, believing that the book might in the future serve as a benchmark study of displaced peoples. Hayden also believed that Rao's explanation for why the peripatetic lifestyle is successful was a good summary of the scholarly consensus surrounding the peripatetic lifestyle.[19]

Rao's co-authored and co-edited book Nomadism in South Asia is a series of essays on nomadism in South Asia.[24][25] Vinay Kumar Srivastava said that the ethnographic investigations done on nomadism by the authors were extensive. He further added that "...this is the first volume of its kind that brings together different writings, from different cultural contexts on nomads".[24] According to Denison University's Bahram Tavakolian, the book clarified the understanding of how "environment, structure, and agency" interacted in nomadic cultures.[25]

Rao was given the

Choice award in 1999, for her book Autonomy: Life Cycle, Gender, and Status among Himalayan Pastoralists.[26]

Death

Rao died of cancer on 28 June 2005.[17][1]

Works

Books authored

Books edited

Selected papers

Notes

  1. ^ a b The Ghorbat of Afghanistan. Economic Aspects of an Itinerant Group 'Jat'
  2. ^ Journal of the Commission of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences on the Nomadic Peoples[11]

References

  1. ^
    JSTOR 25843125
    .(subscription required)
  2. JSTOR 40389730. They occupy what the German anthropologist Aparna Rao dubs the "peripatetic niche" (1993: 503-509) - and Alan Barnard (1993: 35) refers to as the san in any city.(registration required
    )
  3. JSTOR 43124142. Aparna was born on 3 February 1950 in New Delhi as the third child of a historian and an Anglicist. Both her parents had studied at Oxford and both had been engaged in the political struggles of India during their time. Through her parents, Aparna was confronted with the grave socioeconomic problems of India and became acquainted with the role of academia in societal struggles. Although belonging to an elite family, social conscience and personal responsibility were core motivations for her later academic engagements.(registration required
    )
  4. ^
    JSTOR 43124142.(registration required
    )
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-1598741216
    .
  6. ^ "Prof. Dr. Michael J. Casimir | Faculty of Humanities, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne". University of Cologne. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  7. ISBN 978-1351384322
    . APARNA RAO (1950-2005)
    The Late Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cologne, Germany
  8. Centre national de la recherche scientifique (1981). "Changements Survenus Dans La Liste Des Membres De La Société Asiatique"
    [Changes in the List of Members of the Asian Society]. Journal Asiatique (in French). 269. Paris, France: Société Asiatique: 539–540.
  9. ^
    OCLC 2447750
    , Aparna Rao has taught anthropology at the University of Cologne and acted as Head of Department, Ethnology, at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg. She was cochairperson of the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences and is chief editor of the journal Nomadic Peoples. She has spent several years doing field research among peripatetic pastoral and farming communities.
  10. ISBN 978-0897897716
    .
  11. ^ "Nomadic Peoples". White Horse Press. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  12. ISBN 978-8173040900
    . APARNA RAO did her schooling in India before studying Social Anthropology, Sociology, Human Geography, Islamic Studies and French Literature at the Universities of Paris (Sorbonne) and Srasbourg. She has researched mobile populations of peripatetics and pastoralists, in France, Afghanistan and the Western Himalayas (Kashmir), and published extensively on aspects of social organisation, economy, gender relations and ethnicity. She has taught Anthropology at Cologne University and is acting Head of Department, Anthropology, University of Heidelberg.
  13. OCLC 13178939
    , Dr. Aparna Rao At present: Institut für Völkerkunde der Universität zu Köln Albertus–Magnus Platz D-50923 Köln Germany Present research: in South Asia, among various communities in Kashmir and Rajasthan Subject: economy, cognition, social change, environment
  14. ISBN 978-1443864411
    . In so far as we are concerned with works on secret languages (and similar phenomena) and their speakers from Afghanistan itself, relevant information can be found in works by French researchers (Kieffer 1983; Dor 1977). Among the most valuable of these we can list the works of Aparna Rao, who, while conducting ethnological research on peripatetic groups, made important observations in relation to their "own languages." This research dates back to the 1980s—that is, it emerged subsequent to the Polish findings which will be discussed later. Rao's chief asset was her knowledge of a language from the Indian group at a level attainable only by a native speaker. This enabled her to perceive phenomena not previously noticed by anyone else, during her field studies in Afghanistan. The archives of the author of the present book preserve fragments of her correspondence with Aparna Rao and Andreas Tietze, dating from 1987–1988, related to research on secret languages.
  15. ISBN 978-1902806235
    . Afghanistan is the first country to the west of India and Pakistan where we can identify industrial nomads who do not speak any of the local languages but a dialect from North India, in this case, Inku. Aparna Rao has identified four clans – Jalali, Pikraj, Shadibaz and Vangawala – who fall into this definition of 'Gypsy'. The locals call them 'Jat', which is used in a pejorative way. [..] They number in total some 7,000 and live on the edge of Afghan society.
  16. ISSN 2566-686X
    . Retrieved December 17, 2020.
  17. ^ a b John (Jack) Shrader (2005). "Memorial: Remembering Aparna Rao 1950-2005" (PDF). Himalaya. 25 (1). Jeff Kwgel. Retrieved April 17, 2020 – via Macalester College.
  18. ^
    JSTOR 678541.(registration required
    )
  19. ^
    JSTOR 3804056. The terminology used for this adaptation had not always been consistent in these studies, but the term 'peripatetic peoples' proposed by Rao has now gained general acceptance.(registration required
    )
  20. ISBN 978-1317970859
    . The concept of peripatetics has been introduced in Romani studies by scholars such as Aparna Rao (1985, 1987), Joseph Berland (1982) and Salo and Salo (1982). Peripataticism is a mode of subsistence of great adaptive value. Peripatetics are endogamous groups who "employ regular spatial mobility as an economic strategy" (Rao 1987, 1).
  21. ^
    JSTOR 40460673.(registration required
    )
  22. ^
    JSTOR 23057629.(registration required
    )
  23. ^
    JSTOR 23654736.(registration required
    )
  24. ^
    JSTOR 40466520.(registration required
    )
  25. ^
    JSTOR 43123738.(registration required
    )
  26. JSTOR 43123722.(registration required
    )
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