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Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Sexual Figures of Kerala -- 1. Tracing the Prostitute: Between Excess and Containment -- 2. To Claim the Day: The Sex Worker as Subject in the Time of AIDS -- 3. Wandering in the Vernacular: Divergent Visions of Queerness -- 4. Living Together, Dying Together: The Politics of Lesbian Hauntings -- 5. "What You Think Is Fire . . .": Unspooled Movements and Suspended Readings -- Notes -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

Cox reviews 'Kerala Christian Sainthood. Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South India' by Corinne G. Dempsey.

Kalaricikitsa, a unique traditional medicinal praxis, practised in a kalari or arena where young men and women learn kalarippayattu, martial arts of Kerala, employs various massage therapies for healing and wellness in which the human body plays a significant role. Though the human body has been a subject of study in various disciplines including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, and religion, scholars of religion have not explored kalaricikitsa from a Hindu religious perspective. Based on fieldwork, this essay explicates the connection between religion and healing in kalaricikitsa and augments current discourses of the body from a Hindu devotional perspective. Divided into two sections, first it discusses the tensions, traditions, and treatments of kalaricikitsa within its historical framework, second it explicates the role of the human body as a nexus of the divine and human enterprise in kalaricikitsa. I suggest that kalaricikitsa attempts to restore and maintain equilibrium of the physical and religious through the human body as a space transcending the dichotomy between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the divine and human.

This article locates various historical discourses of anti-caste imaginaries and articulations that are imprinted in the historical past of Kerala society. Unravelling historical and social theoretical trends, it examines broadly an anti-caste imaginary articulating notions of equality and addressing various events, personnel interventions, policies and ideologies made discursive politics in Kerala. As ideologies and its consequent effects upon society are political, the article substantially makes comments and interprets the Dalit-Bahujan world grounded on the lived experiences of Dalits in Kerala. The article brings forth discourses of social movements, production of Dalit icons, critical narratives on untouchability and communist positions about caste. But, a new imagination, academic and aesthetical engagements of Dalit-Bahujans in the form of the production of Dalit art and literature informs new articulation of Dalit politics in Kerala.

AbstractThis article situates the empirical context of small freshwater bodies in the theoretical debates of commons and political ecology to understand the processes of institutionalization. We argue that a "politics of empty space" operating in the policy narratives and the practices have resulted in a partial decommodification of rural waters in Kerala. The communities, especially the oppressed and the marginalized, have managed to co‐produce ecological assets like rural ponds. Such efforts towards re‐embedding the economy in the society could be a starting point to address the water and the larger environmental crisis that we are in today.

Abstract
The spread of COVID-19 is a challenge the likes of which the world has not witnessed in recent times. Response to the pandemic has both medical and non-medical facets. The non-medical response includes measures such as social distancing, quarantine, and lockdown. The police have a significant role in the implementation of these measures. Using time-series analyses, the data from one district and the state of Kerala were examined to ascertain whether the police efforts had an impact on the spread of the disease. The study concludes that the interventions by the police had a significant effect in reducing the spread of the disease.