Maoists at the Hearth

Judith Pettigrew is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Clinical Therapies and member of the Centre for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Limerick. She is coeditor of Windows into a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal. David N. Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology and Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. He is author of several books, including Rebuilding Buddhism: The Theravada Movement in Twentieth-Century Nepal (with Sarah LeVine).

"Maoists at the Hearth is a vivid account of human creativity in dealing with the uncertainty and liminality of wartime and people's ingenuity in adapting to the most trying conditions. . . . An important contribution to the anthropology of war literature, to the study of civil conflicts around the world and Maoist movements in South Asia." (Social Anthropology) "Unpretentious and insightful, Maoists at the Hearth is the very best writing I have encountered on the impact of the Maoist movement in Nepal from the perspective of villagers. An incredible ethnography." (David Holmberg, Cornell University) "No other anthropologist of Nepal, whether foreign or Nepali, has returned so often and so devotedly to the same place throughout the course of the conflict. In doing so, [Judith Pettigrew] has gathered the material for a highly poignant and unique record of village Nepal. . . . Pettigrew's detailed and person-centered ethnographic description conveys lessons about the war that can perhaps be learned in no other way." (From the Foreword, by David N. Gellner) "In the space of six elegantly written chapters, which blend descriptions, events, facts and analyses, Pettigrew paints six scences of the locality, and of Nepal, at various stages of its revolutionary history." (European Bulletin of Himalayan Research) "Her anthropological approach to a context of political violence through the study of changes in routine tasks opens a fruitful path so far little explored, which will certainly attract the attention it deserves." (European Bulletin of Himalayan Research)

• Foreword-David N. GellnerIntroductionChapter 1. The Village of Kwei Nasa in 1991−92Chapter 2. No Place to HideChapter 3. Return to Kwei NasaChapter 4. Maoists in the HouseChapter 5. "Our Government Is the Maoists"Chapter 6. "All We Need Is Peace": The People's Movement and Its AftermathChapter 7. After WordsNotesReferencesIndexAcknowledgments