ABSTRACT
Parts of this book would be familiar territory for students of political science. These sections deal with questions about the location of the village within the levels and arenas of power that together constitute the state; the people who run the institutions of the village; and the manner in which they are appointed. A political scientist with an interest in the discourse of development would venture even further and ask: How do social and economic change affect the distribution of power and the allocation of public resources within the village? What strategies do competing coalitions employ to promote social change or to thwart it as the case may be? And what ideologies and rhetoric do competing elites use to maintain their cohesiveness as political groups? Other parts of the book, steeped in the intimate, face-to-face world of rural social networks, ties of ritual and social obligation, belong more properly to the domain of cultural anthropology. Is it possible to comprehend the full text of the narrative through a common language of social science?
