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The third and final volume in the series on communication processes, Communication, Culture and Confrontation is a bold attempt at breaking conceptual and methodological impasses which stifle communication studies. Departing from established frameworks and dated technological metaphors such as 'transmission', the present volume explores and analyzes different forms of communication media in relation to the cultural configurations and contending forces that permeate them.

Positioned at the interface of culture and communication studies, the discourse in the book engages with multiple voices, bringing together academic scholars and grassroot social animators. Exploring seven different popular cultural forms, such as rituals, songs, narratives, calendar art, pamphlets, and so on, through 18 case studies, it goes on to suggest a complex model of communication. In this framework, cultures cannot be viewed as items exchanged in the hegemonic space of global communication. Cultural configurations display themselves as 'evolutive' forms of social communication that weave human beings into collectives and bind these collectives with one another-all permeated with the power parameter. Cultures 'perform' viable collectives when they come to be apprehended in a field of contending forces: a milieu of exchange, encounter, confrontation and possibly conflict.

This volume will be invaluable for students of communication, culture studies, sociology and journalism.

Contents: Introduction: remoulding the cultural as the contentious/Bernard Bel, Jan Brouwer, Biswajit Das, Vibodh Parthasarathi and Guy Poitevin. I. Conflicting stakes: 1. From the popular to the people/Guy Poitevin. 2. Interventionist tendencies in popular culture/Vibodh Parthasarathi. 3. The Indian legal system: a unique combination of traditions, practices and modern values/Karine Bates. II. Power of orality: Introduction/editors. i. Terrains of rejuvenation: 4. The donkey: a mirror of self-identification/Guy Poitevin. 5. Memory and social protest/Badri Narayan. 6. Say it in singing! Prosodic patterns and Rhetorics in the performance of Grindmill songs/Bernard Bel, Genevieve Caelen-Haumont and Hema Rairkar. ii. Assets of dissent: 7. Grindmill songs: a reference of autonomous self-insight/Hema Rairkar. 8. From grindmill songs to cultural action/Tara Ubhe. 9. A reactivated performance capacity/Kusum Sonavne. III. Contours of creativity: Introduction/editors. i. Scenarios of stress: 10. Folk arts and folk artists: myths and realities/P.J. Amala Dos. ii. Scenarios of appropriation: 11. Resisting colonial modernity: Premchand's Rangabhoomi/Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay. 12. Street Theatre in Maharashtra/Hema Rairkar. 13. Action Theatre in Belgium/Paul Biot. IV. Contestations in public spaces: Introduction/Editors. i. Intruding orders: 14. Ephemera, communication and the quest for power: Hindutva in Uttar Pradesh/Jayati Chaturvedi and Gyaneshwar Chaturvedi. 15. The ritual management of desire in Indian Bazaar Art/Kajri Jain. ii. Contending idioms: 16. On the way to Pandhari/Jitendra Maid and Guy Poitevin. 17. The famous invincible Darkies/Denis-Constant Martin. Epilogue. About the editors and contributors.