|
Sort Order |
|
|
|
Items / Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Srl | Item |
1 |
ID:
167243
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the aftermath of the Nepal earthquakes of 2015 with special reference to their impact on marginalized communities, in particular Dalit or ‘Untouchable’ communities in Sindhupalchok District, one of the worst affected districts of Nepal. The earthquakes not only took thousands of lives and destroyed property and livelihoods, but their aftermath has revealed the webs of power that shape and limit the opportunities of different communities. Referencing the theoretical approach to access pioneered by (Ribot, J., and N. Peluso. 2003. “A Theory of Access.” Rural Sociology 68 (2): 153–181)the article proceeds to analyze the relative ‘winners and losers’ from the reconstruction process, finding a mixed picture of opportunities and barriers facing the most marginalized communities in the district.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
ID:
119045
|
|
|
3 |
ID:
193294
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This afterword critically engages with the introduction and five essays of this special section on Muslim caste associations, illuminating their distinctive contributions and posing questions toward the further development of a collective research agenda.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 |
ID:
176020
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
How do historical ideas of global, supremacist connection exist alongside ideas of civilisational and racial difference? And what enables certain reactionary, political alliances to traverse colonial hierarchies of power? With an onset in contemporary, transnational connections between a Hindu and a Western Right, this article offers a critical genealogical reading of the concept of Aryanism. Understanding it as articulated historically through interactions between British colonialists and upper-caste Hindus in India, this reading focuses on these elites’ intersecting and contradictory ideas of hierarchy, difference, and cross-civilisational connection. Tracing the empirical, theoretical and political implications of these entanglements, the article contributes to on-going discussions on the imperial roots of conceptual formations and knowledge production in postcolonial International Relations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
ID:
144914
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This article probes the intersection of spatial, caste, and gender axes of power in shaping contemporary inequalities in Kerala, through mixed-method research in an urban slum. Relying largely on qualitative data, it constructs a history of work in the slum for lower caste men and women against the backdrop of Kerala politics from the 1940s until the present. It examines the role of widening gender gaps, the persistence of secularized caste, and flagging working-class politics and discourse in shaping contemporary socioeconomic exclusion in urban areas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
ID:
159383
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This paper analyses Ambedkar's challenge to racial theories of untouchability. It examines how Franz Boas’ ideas about race, via Alexander Goldenweiser, influenced Ambedkar's political thought. Ambedkar is situated as a thinker aware of larger changes taking place in Western academia in the early twentieth century. During his time at Columbia University, Ambedkar familiarised himself with ideas that rejected the fixity of identities and racial hierarchies; following Boas, he rejected the idea that the untouchables’ place in society was determined by their supposed racial inferiority. Instead, he argued that untouchability was a cultural problem that could be stamped out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
ID:
075862
|
|
|
Publication |
2006.
|
Summary/Abstract |
Outbursts of collective violence are often (understandably) met by expressions of outrage or condemnation. 'How is it,' accounts muse, 'that ordinary people can commit such atrocities?' This article argues that an exclusive focus on the violent act can contribute little to our understanding. Instead, it seeks to elucidate the routine processes and actions that serve to render violence acceptable (even banal) as a mode of action. Exclusive identities and a powerful rhetoric of honour, pride, and shame persuade people that violence is either desirable or even necessary in a given context. Following Billig's account of banal nationalism, I argue that grasping these mundane day-to-day processes is essential for an understanding of collective violence. The article draws on research amongst caste-based movements in South India to support this argument.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 |
ID:
142828
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
Wedged uncomfortably between the gathering pan-Indian nationalist movement and the locally resonant and divisive anti-Brahman, Tamil ethno-nationalist movement, Left leaders in the Tamil region in India were faced with a difficult and complex set of political choices and challenges in the early twentieth century. These political challenges brought to the fore the social and political contradictions between an anti-colonial Indian nationalism led mostly by upper-caste liberal–bourgeois leaders and an equally entrenched and locally resonant ethno-nationalist movement which, despite its social reformist and anti-Brahman platform, was led by dominant non-Brahman caste leaders committed to the continuation of British rule. In this paper, we will be looking at two of the most prominent Tamil Left leaders who attempted to work with and bridge these contradictory movements in Tamil society. M. Singaravelu (1860–1946) and P. Jeevanandam (1907–63) were prominent Left leaders and intellectuals in the Tamil region and were well known for their close engagement with and sensitivity to issues of social reform, caste and linguistic and cultural hegemony. Both joined various political movements including the Indian National Congress, the Dravidian movement and the Indian communist party in different phases of their careers. It is their participation and engagement with such diverse and contradictory movements that make their intellectual interventions unique and a close study of their work valuable for providing a window into how the Left attempted to deal with such thorny issues as the politics of caste and language in India.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9 |
ID:
142474
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
Many inhabitants of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) hold the belief that their society is not only more egalitarian today than that of their forefathers', but also more egalitarian than that in Pakistan. According to them, Pakistani society continues to be highly hierarchical with stark class and caste-like boundaries, while in AJK these boundaries have become weaker and merely symbolic since the 1970s due to changes in four interconnected factors; namely, migration patterns, land ownership, access to education, and democratic politics. This created an unprecedented level of social mobility among and within biradaris, the caste-like kinship corporate entities that are the crucial social boundary in this region. Yet, the main factor dictating membership in the biradari – endogamy – did not change, and access to power and resources is still determined mostly through biradari-ism. In this paper, I examine how notions of hierarchy and social stratification evolved over time and what contributed to this evolution. I argue and conclude that AJK society is still hierarchical but it has gained an element of fluidity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10 |
ID:
191120
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This article argues that from circa 1845–1857, British colonial officials and administrators, abetted by Protestant missionaries and some so-called ‘native Christians’, attempted to replace Brahmanical regulation of everyday life with what I am calling ‘governance by conscience’ in British India. It uses the 1851 legal ruling in Narayen Ramchundur versus Luxmeebae, hailed by some for bringing ‘liberty of conscience’ and condemned by others as a wanton violation of Hindu personal law, to elucidate the connections between the Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850 (Act XXI) and education. My analysis highlights the centrality of Brahman wives and gender to debates about conscience, caste, property, and Christian conversion. During the violent summer of 1857, some condemned the Act and its use in deciding the case of Narayen Ramchundur versus Luxmeebae as provocation for the traumatic disorders then threatening to dismantle Britain's Indian empire.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
11 |
ID:
096272
|
|
|
Publication |
2010.
|
Summary/Abstract |
Mayawati's recent victory, in May 2007, in the Uttar Pradesh elections has been hailed as a 'spectacular display of subaltern power'. The questions remain: who are these subalterns? To what extent do they form a coherent block, with similar fears, hopes and aspirations, and how are subalterns' visions of the state, social justice and equality articulated? This paper explores some of these questions, by examining the example of the boatman community in Banaras, belonging to the Mallah (Nishad) caste, and the strategies they use to be heard as legitimate citizens of the state. Such strategies and techniques reveal a sophisticated and organized apparatus of caste and community associations that call into question some recent theoretical formulations of the Indian state as one dominated and manipulated by powerful elites, while subalterns remain passive or, at best, compliant.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
12 |
ID:
001008
|
|
|
Publication |
New Delhi, Manohar pub., 1998.
|
Description |
x, 278p.
|
Standard Number |
8173042381
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copies: C:1/I:0,R:0,Q:0
Circulation
Accession# | Call# | Current Location | Status | Policy | Location |
040516 | 305.5122/JAI 040516 | Main | On Shelf | General | |
|
|
|
|
13 |
ID:
155747
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
The city has been eulogized as a liberating space of anonymity where identities of caste and creed dissolve before the might of economic capital. This paper examines how the role of caste is both masked and intensified in the formation of new neighbourhoods in the backdrop of city-remaking projects. Our ethnographic study of Dalit-dominated neighbourhoods in Ahmedabad shows that the emergence of a middle-class neighbourhood in Ahmedabad’s periphery must be seen as a ‘post-liberalization Dalit ghetto’ that is distinct from the pre-liberalization Dalit neighbourhoods in the industrial centre of the city. The new Dalit middle-class neighbourhood of Chandkheda is a result of greater economic mobility among Dalits which continues to be marked by the three exclusionary mechanisms: ‘moving up’ and into segregation; caste vigilantism; and protean forms of intra-Dalit exclusion. The collusion of caste and capital produces unexpected forms of space politics that tend to enhance rather than dissolve distinctions based on micro-caste identities in middle-class residential spaces, all the while hiding new forms of exclusion behind the rhetoric of secularized urban development.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
14 |
ID:
118868
|
|
|
15 |
ID:
160154
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This article, based on original research in 75 villages in the North Indian state of Haryana, examines long-distance marriages of its dominant-peasant caste men with low-caste (Dalit) women from other parts of India. The male marriage squeeze caused by the female deficit in Haryana has led to this breach in the rules of caste endogamy in matrimony. These marriages and the gender status of such Dalit brides are situated within the context of polarized caste relations, caste contestations, and caste violence against local Dalits in Haryana. Long-distance alliances, through fabricated, high-caste identities of the brides, tactically circumvent prohibitions on local inter-caste marriages and provide legitimacy to continued, local, unequal hierarchies of caste relations. Intersecting oppressions of caste, gender, and patriarchy exacerbate gender subordination within both the home and community for Dalit cross-region brides. Caste-exclusionary behaviours and discriminations are strategically employed to assert caste supremacy and subdue women's resistance. The caste stigmatization of these brides carries over to their children who face inter-generational discrimination in daily interactions and marriage prospects because of their ‘diluted’ Jat identity and low-caste status. The article provides examples of Dalit brides’ agency through resistance strategies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
16 |
ID:
151137
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This article is based on a micro-level village study in
Kerala, the southernmost Indian state with its long-standing
impressive basic indicators in health, economic growth and social
development. Using the theoretical perspective of ‘cultural inflation
of morbidity’ for a hypothesis of continuing inequities in health
outcomes, it examines how far such impressive basic indicators have
actually translated into equity in health outcomes, defined in terms
of incidence of morbidity and morbidity pattern. Confirming the
hypothesis, the findings discuss to what extent both caste and gender,
separately and together, may be continuing today to mediate health
outcomes in a changing socio-economic environment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
17 |
ID:
152622
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
David Washbrook's influential early work on South India set the terms for much subsequent debate about caste, with its exploration of the key role of the colonial state in shaping caste ideologies and institutions. Over subsequent decades, historians and anthropologists have come increasingly to emphasise the ‘colonial construction’ of caste and its enduring legacies in post-colonial India. Yet there were also significant continuities linking the forms of colonial caste with much earlier regional histories of conflict and debate, whose legacies can be traced into the late colonial period. In particular, the juxtaposition between Brahman and non-Brahman itself was anticipated in a tradition of conservative social commentary that emerged in the Deccan Sultanate state of Ahmadnagar, and came to circulate widely through Banaras and western India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This tradition of commentary acquired new salience during the nineteenth century. It entered the colonial archive as an authoritative source of knowledge, and also provoked early ‘non-Brahman’ intellectuals into a fresh engagement with its conservative social vision. In their attempts to rebut this vision, these intellectuals displayed a detailed knowledge of its social history and a deep familiarity with the judicial decisions through which it had been upheld in earlier centuries.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
18 |
ID:
193287
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
Although many commentators believed that caste did not matter in West Bengal, in recent years it has emerged as a significant factor in electoral politics. The decline of the Left and the rise of the centrist-incumbent have fanned identity politics and the resurgence of caste-based political mobilisation. In this conversation, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, a well-known expert in the history and politics of caste in Bengal, illuminates the complexities, uniqueness and dynamics of caste politics in colonial Bengal and contemporary West Bengal. The interview explores the evolution of the caste-system in colonial Bengal, its differences with the rest of India and the multiple manifestations of caste-based politics in contemporary West Bengal. Bandyopadhyay reflects on the intersection of caste with other categories of class and religion, the lower-castes’ involvement, appropriation and neglect in the political spectrum, and the future of caste and politics in West Bengal.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
19 |
ID:
188744
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
The task of recent scholarship on India’s post-liberalisation period has been, in part, a re-casteing: a deliberate investigation of the ways in which historically embedded hierarchical divisions are continually reworked and thereby reinvigorated. Amid contemporary debates over the forms, sites and effects of caste and caste discrimination, this article identifies a shift in critical scholarship towards understandings of caste as process. Processual readings of caste within market- and merit-based institutions productively reframe caste in India from a ‘relic’ undergoing erosion to an accretion of new layers and logics upon older principles of innate human value.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
20 |
ID:
180615
|
|
|
Summary/Abstract |
This essay challenges the salience of the caste question for writing a social history of modern Assam. It argues that pre-colonial records contained enough indicators for arguing that caste in Assam was never a rigid and impermeable social grid. The variegated nature of Assam’s geo-political and cultural past meant that the progress of Brahmanical culture here was neither smooth nor unmitigated. The essay argues that the region’s social and cultural intricacies could not be comprehended through an interpretive framework developed in a pan-Indian context. The same was, however, used by the census officials to streamline the region’s discrete patterns into rigidly structured hierarchies and uniformly imagined categories. Through a close reading of the pre-decennial and decennial census reports and other records from the nineteenth century, this essay identifies numerous misreading of local level empirical data that enabled the British to produce a uniform caste history for the region.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|