Zarin Ahmad
Zarin Ahmad is a Delhi-based scholar trained in Political Science and South Asian Studies at the University of Calcutta and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her PhD was on refugees and Tamil and Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka. She has been a Research Fellow at the French Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi and the French Institute, Pondicherry and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Studies in Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi and the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Delhi. Zarin works at the intersection of urban anthropology and politics and her research interests so far have touched on matters both sacred and profane such as Islamic property laws and the regulation of meat and the working lives of butchers.
NIF Books
Tracing the journey of meat from the farm to the meat shop and other workspaces of the butcher within the multi-sited margins in Delhi, the current volume intimately follows the lives of Qureshi butchers and other meat sector workers in this transforming mega-city. The author addresses the tensions that meat throws up in a bristling society whose stakes are now more than ever intense. She shows how meat is also a rising sector in the Indian economy, and fetches precious foreign exchange. Qureshi butchers stand at the crossroads of class, caste, stigma, religion, market, urban ecological policies, and a never-ceasing political debate around these issues.
Delhi's Meatscapes brings together rare archival documents, vernacular sources, and ethnographic insights gleaned from several years of immersion in the city's meatscapes and is the first of its kind for urban anthropologists, economists, political scientists, policy planners and readers who wish to take a hard look at their own (non-) meat choices.
Purchase: Amazon
Reviews:
‘Zarin Ahmad's Delhi's Meatscapes is a rich contribution to scholarship on Muslims in India. The book dives into the lives of the Muslim Qureshi butchers of Delhi; their history, occupation, diversities, success stories, limits to these success stories and challenges traditional butchers face in a fast-mechanizing industry.’- Ola Płońska, Politics, Religion & Ideology