Scheduling tribes: A view from inside India's ethnographic state.

Venturing into an ethnography of government anthropologists themselves, this article interrogates the bureaucratic inner workings and actual agents of today's 'ethnographic state'. By engaging with the civil servants who verify India's Scheduled Tribes, I explore the politics of 'tribal' recognition from the inside out. This perspective lends timely insight into the logistical, political, and epistemological difficulties integral to the functioning-and current crisis-of India's affirmative action system. Weighing the demands of 'tribal' recognition through those that arguably know them best-government anthropologists themselves- this study examines the human dimension (and dilemmas) of the Indian state and its affirmative action system for Scheduled Tribes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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