Gloria Goodwin Raheja is American anthropologist who specializes in ethnographic history. She is the author of several historical works where she explores the concepts of caste and gender in India, colonialism, politics of representation, blues music, capitalism in the Appalachia and other diverse topics. [1] Raheja argues that caste stratification in India was influenced by British colonialism. [2] Monographs on ethnographic history and India have been considered "acclaimed" by the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute . [3]
She is professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. [4]
Raheja attended Chatham College, graduating in 1971 with a bachelor's in anthropology. [4] She received her master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1976 and also earned her PhD from the same institution in 1985. [1] [4] Between 1993 and 1997, she was the Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. [1] [5] She was also the Director of the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota between 1998 and 2001. [6]
Raheja is the author of the book The Poison of the Gift, a village ethnography. [7] [8] According to a review by Declan Quigley, Reheja has "established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the anthropological study of Hindu society." [8]
She has written the book Listen to the Heron's Words : Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India with Ann Grodzins Gold. [9] Listen to the Heron's Words analyzes songs of women from the rural mountain regions of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan which turn up an alternative morality relating to women's concepts of kinship and gender roles. [10] Songs, Stories, Lives: Gendered Dialogues and Cultural Critique studies the "social dynamics in the songs and folktales" of India. [11]
She is currently working on a book titled Logan County Blues: Frank Hutchison in the Sonic Landscape of the Appalachian Coalfield and analyzes the music of coal miners in Appalachia in relation to the economic and environmental transformations that occurred in the late nineteenth centuries. [4] Frank Hutchison, the first white guitarist to record blues, will be featured in this book. [4]
A 2nd book in progress is Scandalous Traductions: Landscape, History, Memory and is a combination of ethnographic history, memoir, and poetry in Appalachian coal mining counties. [4]
The following books have been published by Gloria Goodwin Raheja:
She is also the author of the following articles: