This book investigates the complex process through which people construct meaning and motivation for political action. Building on Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph's seminal scholarship of India, the contributors to this volume develop the concept of "situated knowledge" to conceptualize people'sunderstandings of their "lived experience" and social scientists' knowledge claims. They show how understanding people's situated knowledge requires analyzing how they are embedded in complex configurations of social relations, time, place, and culture. Similarly, scholarly knowledge claims areembedded in the modes of analysis and methodological techniques that shape their insights. The authors show how "moral imagination" or the capacity to empathize with other people's lives, plays a crucial role in explaining remarkable acts of heroism while their capacity to dehumanize is an importantcause of terrorism and genocide. They demonstrate how people's understandings are shaped by ongoing discourses and ideational power. Other contributions illuminate how the mutual constitution of class, status, and culture shape political mobilization in India. The volume offers provocative insightsabout Indian politics by explaining how political leadership can transform people's understandings in ways that lead to the dramatic transformation of deeply-rooted social and institutional structures. | Interpreting Politics by John Echeverri Gent, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters