The Local-level Social Life of Global Ideologies

全球政治意识形态，如共产主义，是如何在当地扎根并延续几代人的？斯坦福大学人类学家Sharika Thiranagama博士将通过对意识形态联系在日常社会中得以延续的微观过程的调查来解决这个问题。 这项研究将在印度南部的喀拉拉邦进行。这是一个合适的研究地点，因为在1957年，喀拉拉邦看到了有史以来第一个民主选举的共产主义政府的安装和共产党一直是执政联盟的一部分，从那时起。 喀拉拉邦的共产主义经历了苏联的解体和世界上大部分地区有组织的左翼势力的衰落。这个项目解决了为什么以及如何发生的问题。虽然社会科学中的许多研究通过检查选举人票和正式机构来评估和衡量政治派别，但Thiranagama博士将通过他们如何在家庭和公共空间的日常实践中表现出来来研究政治意识形态的传播和普遍影响。这个项目将有助于理解政治意识形态如何通过塑造人们生活的非政治领域而持续存在，也有助于理解苏联，中国和东欧集团以外的共产主义运动的长期来世。 这项研究将在喀拉拉邦的帕拉卡德和坎努尔地区进行，这两个地区长期以来都是共产党的据点。Thiranagama博士将重点介绍模范机构：公共图书馆系统和私人“共产主义家庭”。“两人都与喀拉拉邦公开和私下宣扬共产主义有着深刻的牵连。喀拉拉邦独特的图书馆运动将阅读室、大众识字、深思熟虑的政治讨论和共产主义引入日常生活。“共产主义家庭”试图重新配置伦理和亲密生活的实践。数据将在两个社区收集，并与图书馆用户和工作人员使用混合方法的方法，包括访谈，参与者观察，家庭调查和生活史访谈。此外，将进行档案研究，以构建图书馆和家庭的纵向社会历史。这项研究的结果将有助于理解现代一个持久的问题：全球意识形态是如何被接受并在普通人的日常生活中持续存在的。

How do global political ideologies, such as communism, become locally rooted and perpetuated over generations? Stanford University anthropologist, Dr. Sharika Thiranagama, will address this question through an investigation into the micro-processes through which ideological affiliations are perpetuated in everyday sociality. The research will be conducted in the southern Indian state of Kerala. This is an appropriate site for the research because in 1957, Kerala saw the installation of the first ever democratically elected communist government and communist parties have been part of the ruling coalition ever since. Communism in Kerala has survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and the waning of the organized left in most of the world. This project addresses the question of why and how this has come about. While much research in the social sciences evaluates and measures political affiliation through the examination of electoral votes and formal institutions, Dr. Thiranagama will instead examine the percolating and pervasive effects of political ideologies through how they are manifested in everyday practices in the family and in public spaces. This project will both contribute to an understanding of how political ideology might persist by shaping non-political realms of people's lives and also to an understanding of the long afterlife of the communist movement outside of the Soviet, Chinese, and Eastern Europe Bloc. The research will be carried out in Kerala in the districts of Palakkad and Kannur, both of which have long been communist strongholds. Dr. Thiranagama will focus on exemplary institutions: the public library system and the private "communist family." Both have been deeply implicated in the public and private promulgation of communism in Kerala. Kerala's unique library movement introduced reading rooms, mass literacy, deliberative political discussion and communism into everyday life. The "communist family" sought to reconfigure ethics and the practice of intimate life. Data will be gathered in two neighborhoods and with library users and staff using a mixed methods approach, including interviews, participant observation, household surveys, and life history interviews. In addition, archival research will be undertaken to construct longitudinal social histories of the library and the family. Findings from this research will help to understand one of the enduring questions of modern times: how global ideologies are taken up and made to persist in ordinary people's daily lives.