Name Gloria Raheja | ||
Gloria Goodwin Raheja is 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. Raheja argues that caste stratification in India was influenced by British colonialism. Monographs on ethnographic history and India have been considered "acclaimed" by the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Raheja attended Chatham College, graduating in 1971 with a bachelor's in anthropology. She received her master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1976 and also earned her PhD from the same institution in 1985. Between 1993 and 1997, she was the Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota.
Raheja is the author of the book The Poison Of the Gift. She has written the book Listen to the Heron's Words : Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India with Ann Grodzins Gold. 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. Songs, Stories, Lives: Gendered Dialogues and Cultural Critique studies the "social dynamics in the songs and folktales" of India.