In Hindustan is a Dream, Tanajea discusses the experience of Muslims living as a religious minority in India through three different mediums: the life and poetry of Juan Elia, a critique of Hindu nationalism by Maukana Abdul Hameed Nomani, and contemporary experiences such as CAA public protests. This reading really opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of ethnographies. Depending on scale and logistical restrictions, one can utilize a multitude of methodologies and seamlessly weave them together, even if they seem to not connect on the surface. I think the fact that Taneja used starkly different methods made the argument all the more convincing- this issue permeates every facet of life today, as well as throughout history. I’d love to know if there were other methods or accounts Taneja had to leave out of this work.
Sharing a Room with Sparrows only focused on one medium: personal writing accounts from the 1940s. This was also really interesting for me to read because when I think of important, cutting-edge research, I think of brand new experiments and ideas. This really showed me that there are so many historical accounts worth reading about, and that they will always be relevant to the present. The emphasis on the connection between man and nature, as well as the anti-capitalist sentiments, reminded me of the Tsing reading as well. The following quote stuck out most to me: “His writings holds open potential for us to rethink our relationships to humans and non-humans, as we are all collectively undergoing similar experiences of human disruption, because of a pandemic caused by increasingly exploitative human-animal interactions and accelerated velocities and interconnections of global capitalism and the carbon economy.” It’s a bit eerie reading about the lessons and experiences of the pandemic and we still live through it.