Varieties of activist experience : civil society in South Asia / edited by David N. Gellner.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Making Civil Society in South Asia / David N. Gellner -- Chapter 2 The Biography of a Magar Communist / Anne de Sales -- Chapter 3 Creating 'Civilized' Communists: A Quarter of a Century of Politicization in Rural Nepal / Sara Shneiderman -- Chapter 4 Youth and Political Engagement in Sri Lanka / Siripala Hettige -- Chapter 5 Can Women be Mobilized to Participate in Indian Local Politics? / Stefanie Strulik -- Chapter 6 Surveying Activists in Nepal / David N. Gellner and Mrigendra Bahadur Karki -- Chapter 7 Disciplined Activists, Unruly Brokers? Exploring the Boundaries between Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), Donors, and the State in Bangladesh / David Lewis -- Chapter 8 Activists and Development in Nepal / Celayne Heaton Shrestha -- Chapter 9 From Big Game to Biodiversity: Middle-class Environmental Activists and Wildlife Conservation in Sri Lanka / Arjun Guneratne -- Chapter 10 Civil Society and its Fragments / William F. Fisher

"This book examines in rich detail the lives, struggles, and strategies of South Asian activists seeking to advance various political, social, and environmental causes. Through a series of case studies from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka on activists' efforts, it elucidates how they mediate between different spheres that are often (and sometimes legally) kept apart-the political and the legal, the economic and the political, the local and the international. The uniqueness of this book lies in its treatment of 'civil society' as a process brought into being by the actions of specific individuals whose struggles and experiences can profitably be examined for understanding everyday politics."--pub. desc.