Contradictions and Conflict: A Dialectical Political Anthropology of a University in Western India

Donald V. Kurtz, Ph.D. (1970), University of California-Davis, is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has published on political subjects, including The Work Ethic and the Development of Teotihuacan (1991) and The Legitimation of the Aztec State (1984).

This work analyzes the history of conflict in one Indian university. Scholars representing Maharashtrian Brahman and non-Brahman castes embedded in the university's postgraduate campus and urban and rural colleges have fought for over forty years to control university government. The structure of these castes, institutional and regional contradictions, suggests that conflict will persist.The book explores the history of conflict from 1924 to 1989 and proposes a dialectical methodology to analyze the conflict. It examines the agents and dramatic conflicts that engaged them. Finally, it suggests a dialectical political anthropology for understanding politics anthropologically.The work suggests that a dialectical methodology focused on internal social contradictions provides a superior analysis of conflicts that impel historical agency, and that universities, largely ignored by anthropologists, are exciting reservoirs for ethnographic research.

Preface I. The Ethnographic Setting: Postgraduate Campus and Colleges II. Episodes III. Historical Prologue IV. Introduction and Methodology V. Agents: Profiles, Praxes and Projects VI. The Early Conflict: Postgraduate Campus and City Colleges (1924-1970) VII. The Era of The Gang: The 1974 Act and Challenges to its Hegemony (1970-1978) VIII. The Gang vs. The Clique: The Era of The Clique (1974 - circa 1982) IX. New Agents and Challenges to the Clique (1980-1989) X. Conclusions References Index