Contemporary Society: Tribal Studies. Volume Five, Concept of Tribal Society Edited by Georg Pfeffer and Deepak Kumar Behera: Review

Peter W. Van Arsdale

For those of us who cut our teeth on tribal studies, this book, edited by Georg Pfeffer and Deepak Kumar Behera, can serve both as a welcome theoretical refresher and an innovative pragmatic compilation. It contains a well-written introductory chapter which lays out the history of tribal studies from interactive – and at times contradictory– Euroamerican and Indian professional perspectives. The introduction reminds us of the classic work of anthropologists such as E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Marshall Sahlins, and Edmund Leach. It also reminds us that “tribe” is by no means a unitary or unifying term.

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