The Katkari of India cope with great hardship on a daily basis, from gruelling physical labour to inadequate food or shelter, exploitation and forced indebtedness to employers. Most families, children included, live at brick kilns for five to six months a year, producing on average 1,500 bricks per day, six days a week. They literally form with their own hands the raw material going into the edifices of one of the most populous regions of the world – Mumbai, Panvel, New Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan. On top of this heavy load comes the weight of stereotypes, discrimination and open contempt directed against the Katkari as a former ‘criminal tribe’. Ignored by the general public and an indifferent government, the Katkari seem to be the epitome of subalterns – poverty-stricken people without voice in social life or agency in the public sphere.

The work of Buckles and Khedkar is a major contribution to lifting the silence and shame that surrounds the story of the Katkari today. It also contributes to a critical rethinking of social anthropology. This is a discipline that is sometimes reproached for having served colonial and post-colonial interests, directly or indirectly. Most anthropologists, however, are now firm in their commitment to understanding cultural difference and otherness as manifestations of our common humanity. Still, as they pursue this noble mission, students of other cultures and ways of life must consciously choose between paths.