The Camera as Witness
A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast India

The book challenges the stereotypes about and narrates the daily lives of the Mizos through the use of vernacular photography.

Joy L. K. Pachuau (Author), Willem van Schendel (Author)

9781107073395, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 April 2015

502 pages
23.7 x 16.2 x 4.1 cm, 0.86 kg

The Camera as Witness lifts the veil off the little known world of Mizoram and challenges - through unpublished photographs - core assumptions in the writing of India's national history. The pictures in the book establish the transformation of this society and the many forms of modernity that have emerged in it. It emphasises how 'indigenous people' in Mizoram used cameras to produce distinct modern identities and represent themselves to themselves, consistently contesting outsiders' imaginations of them as isolated, backward and in need of upliftment. The authors demonstrate how mostly amateur photographers used visual images to document a historical trajectory of heady change and continual reinvention, producing distinct modern identities. By virtue of its use of visual sources and its engagement with a wide range of important discourses, this book is relevant for students, historians, social scientists, political activists and general readers looking for a fresh approach to Northeast India.

List of figures
List of maps
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Part I. Becoming Mizo: 1. Introduction
2. Coming into view: the first images
3. Adjusting Mizo culture
4. Domesticating a new religion
5. Getting educated
6. Controlling the hills
7. The trouble of travel
8. First stirrings of the market economy
9. Mizos in the World Wars
10. Mizo visual sensibilities
Part II. Mizoram in the New India: 11. The long goodbye
12. The emergence of popular politics
13. Mizoram and the new Indian order
14. Mizoram comes to Delhi
15. The search for authenticity at home
16. Mizo style: cowboys at heart
Part III. Visions of Independence: 17. Famine and revolt
18. The Mizoram government at home – and in East Pakistan
19. The Mizoram government – in Burma, China and Bangladesh
20. A state and its minorities
Part IV. Mizo Modernities: 21. Being cool: the music scene
22. Being cool: sharp dressers
23. Studio modernity
24. Conclusion
Acknowledgement of copyrights and sources
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Anthropology [JHM]