A Garland of Bones: Child Runaways in India

Description

An intimate portrait of India’s child runaways, and the sociopolitical forces shaping their lives This intimate portrait examines the tracks, journeys, and experiences of child runaways in northern India. Jonah Steinberg situates children’s decisions to leave home and flee for the city in their larger cultural, social, and historical contexts, and considers histories of landlessness and debt servitude in narratives of child dislocation. The resulting work is an original perspective on the sociological trends in postcolonial India and a unique treatment of a population of individuals who live on the margin of society. Cover Title Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments ONE: Nabil’s Predicament An Introduction TWO: Home and the World Village and Child Up Close THREE: Of Crisis, Calamity, and Village Fabrics FOUR: Death and the Urchin FIVE: Runaway Train Railway Children and Normative Spatialities SIX: Remand to Rehabilitation Urban Institutions and Rural Children SEVEN: Concluding Thoughts, Final Words, and Big Pictures Indian Runaways in Larger Frames? NOTES REFERENCES INDEX