Showing papers on "Caste published in 1978"

Caste and ecology in the social insects

Abstract: In this pathbreaking and far-reaching work George Oster and Edward Wilson provide the first fully developed theory of caste evolution among the social insects. Furthermore, in studying the effects of natural selection in generally increasing the insects' ergonomic efficiency, they go beyond the concentration of previous researchers on the physiological mechanisms of the insects and turn our attention instead to the scale and efficiency of the insects' division of labor.Recognizing that the efficiency of the insect colony is based on a complex fitting of the division of labor to many simultaneous needs, including those imposed by the distribution of resources and enemies around the nest, Professors Oster and Wilson are able to construct a series of mathematical models to characterize the agents of natural selection that promote particular caste systems.The social insects play a key role in the subject of sociobiology because their social organization is so rigid and can be related to genetic evolution. Because of this important consideration, the authors' work has consequences not only for entomology but also for general evolutionary theory.

Women and their affines: the veil as a symbol of separation

Abstract: In north India, the term ghungat nikalna refers to the practice whereby a woman veils her face from all male affines senior to her own husband. A description of ghungat as practised in Ghanyari, a Himalayan village, is given here. Generally, anthropologists have described ghungat within the context of discussions of household organisation. However, as women extend ghungat to all classificatory and 'courtesy' affines, i.e. to most of the senior men in the village, ghungat is better understood as a practice which controls the activities of women within the village community as a whole, not just within the household. Ghungat limits the interaction ofjunior women with senior males, especially high caste senior males, i.e. those who may be expected to wield most power in the community. It is also a depersonalising device, rendering women socially invisible in public contexts. Yet women in Ghanyari are not social ciphers and the device is not wholly effective. It must be understood as a didactic practice, defining an ideal pattern of interaction with affines which is only partially realised in reality.

Colonial Perceptions of Indian Society and the Emergence of Caste(s) Associations

Abstract: Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century “caste” organizations and “caste” polemics were, to a greater extent than has been appreciated, responses to foreign definitions of Indian society. The most important stimulus toward caste-cluster consciousness released by the British presence was neither their advanced technology (which revolutionized the means of communication and transportation) nor their military prowess and administrative skill (which obliterated “the territorial limitations inherent in the pre-British political systems” and “brought a new administrative unity to India in the establishment of a centralized bureaucratic government”—both of which are commonly noted. Rather, the growth of caste-cluster consciousness was largely an unintended but direct consequence of the fact that the foreigners engaged in a continuous attempt to describe, define, interpret, and categorize the social complexity that India presented to them—a society so puzzlingly different from their own.

Kinship and ritual in a South Indian micro-region

Abstract: Fieldwork carried out in the Tirunelvell District of Tamil Nadu, South India, has led to the delineation of a 'micro-region’ of three agricultural villages This micro-region acquires its sociological unity by virtue of a system of inter-caste relationships and prestations which embraces all these villages and which manifests itself equally in the religious, economic, political and administrative spheres In particular, the various specialist caste-groups perform their respective services for clienteles made-up of all or part of the population of the micro-region concerned One aspect of each specialist's duty is his role in the life-crisis rituals of his clients These rituals are themselves subsequently re-examined from the opposite perspective, namely with reference to the intra-caste relationships which they bring into play Particular attention is paid to female puberty rites and to marriage; these are considered as a single ritual complex, concerned with caste purity and the legitimation of off-spring The phenomenon of marriage between a man and his elder sister’s daughter is examined There is a discussion of the problems which this practice raises for the conventional view of the 'Dravidian' marriage system, and an alternative structure is suggested for the kinship terminology in the present case It is argued throughout that the problems being considered are best approached from a sociological, structural perspective, and a three-level model of social reality is adapted for this purpose As a complement to this, the study concludes with a critique of the recently-advanced 'cultural' and 'ethnosociological' approaches in South Asian anthropology

Profile of a Female Agricultural Labourer

Abstract: Leela Gulati Who are the working women of India? What is the value of their labour? This article attempts to answer these broad questions concerning female labour in India by presenting an individual profile; 'Kalyani, a 35-year old female agricultural labourer belonging to the scheduled caste, living in a squatter settlement in Trivandrum.

Tuneful Weeping: A Mode of Communication

Abstract: Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the Northern part of the Indian subcontinent. Although Hindi, the national language, is spoken and understood very well in them, the vast majority of the members of these communities use the languages of Bhojpuri, Magahi, or Maithili as the only medium of communication in their daily lives. It may be that other Indian communities also use weeping to communicate, but I do not possess any reliable information on this subject. Therefore, this report will describe this communicative mode only as it obtains in these speech communities. These are predominantly agricultural regions with residents living in villages. Literacy is not widespread and caste hierarchy is rigidly maintained. Women observe purdah and receive whatever education is available in the village school. Men, especially upper caste men, do not like their women to violate the purdah system. However, it is very different with lower caste men and women, inasmuch as purdah is not an inviolate system with them. Lower caste women work together with their men to earn their living. But it has been observed that as soon as a lower caste man has

The purusasukta: Its relation to the caste system

Abstract: As is well-known, in the Purusasiikta, a reference is made to four orders of society as emanating from the sacrifice of the Primeval Being. The names of those orders are given there as Brahmana, Rijanya, Vaifya, and Sidra, who are said to have come respectively from the mouth, the arms, the thighs, and the feet of the Purusa 1). On the basis of this reference to the "four orders of society" in the Purusasiikta it has been argued that:

Compulsion and Social Change: Is Authoritarianism the Solution to India's Economic Development Problems?

Abstract: The view of critics like Myrdal that a solution to problems of mass poverty requires sweeping changes in established cultural attitudes and institutions which cannot be carried out through democratic methods remains influential in India among intellectuals and radical political parties. Yet, a frontal assault on the existing social order would delay or abort basic economic reforms by fragmenting large numbers of the poorer classes along more potent allegiances to religion, language, and caste. An alternative solution can be devised based on the distinction between direct and indirect obstacles to economic development which are part of the social setting. Direct constraints are found in patterns of land ownership and land tenure. By contrast, the cultural attitudes, caste structures, and power relations are indirect obstacles in the sense that they strengthen ideological and political patterns that stand in the way of agrarian reform. Under Indian conditions democratic rather than authoritarian institutions offer the best prospect over the long term for carrying out basic economic changes. They strengthen egalitarian values and provide an opportunity for direct organization of the more numerous lower castes to weaken both the legitimacy and power of the dominant landed castes—without risking the social disorder of a direct confrontation.

Caste attitudes of college students in India

Abstract: Data from college students in North and South India tend to support our earlier findings of a positive relationship between the educational level and the degree of liberalism (Anant, 1972). With few exceptions a higher percentage of students than respondents from the general population gave liberal responses to most of the items in our questionnaire. A higher percentage of North and South Indian students gave liberal responses to items dealing with general attitudes toward caste-system and toward interaction with Harijans (former ‘untouchables’), but the differences were reversed in the responses to items dealing with special privileges for the depressed castes.

Mother with child

Abstract: Photograph of an Indian woman and child. As a special correspondent for Associated Press, Eddie Adams had carte blanche to choose his assignments anywhere in the world. In 1981, he was in Bihar, India, and photographed this mother and child from the untouchable caste. Associated Press caption dated Dec. 26, 1978 reads: ’India’s Children of God -- These children are ’untouchables’ or Harijans meaning children of God as they were called by the Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi. They were photographed recently in Bihar, India. Gandhi first began fighting for the untouchables’ rights 50 years ago. Although ubtouchability has been outlawed by the Indian constitution the tradition has carried on with changes being resisted by upper castes.’

Caste and Language in Jaffna Society.

Abstract: Mise en evidence de la correlation entre caste et langage dans la societe tamil hindoue de la peninsule de Jaffna (Inde). Noms de castes, leurs substituts et leur usage| nouveaux noms des castes traditionnelles| relations entre caste, noms personnels, terminologie de parente, et structure du langage.

On estates and castes

Abstract: Estate systems can be found in societies ranging from pre-State socioeconomic formations such as that of the Northwest Coast Indians, to politically organized pre-capitalist societies such as ancient Rome and Medieval Europe. The features of each estate system vary accordingly; they fit the social structure, but they all share one trait in common: in estate societies, there is a direct homology between stratification and relations of production. The estates are closely aligned with the classes; they differ from classes primarily because they crystallize into a structure what is actually a political and economic process, and they provide an ideology which justifies inequality as a natural, inherited reality. (Timocracies are an exception, but they historically derive from estate systems based on descent.) Relations of inequality are evident, but they are presented in such a way that inequality seems inescapable. There is a clear consciousness of inequality, but little understanding of the possibilities of equality. In contrast, the caste system does not display this homology between stratification and relations of production. By using “estate” as an analytical concept, we are freed from the category mistake of simply defining castes, along with estates, not to speak of classes, as somehow equivalent systems of “stratification,” or “status”.

From Field to Factory: Community Structure and Industrialization in West Bengal

Abstract: From Field to Factory explores the impact of a modern factory on a Bengal agricultural village and the impact of the village's social and ideological systems on the factory. Morton Klass provides ethnographic data on life and work in both the village and factory and assesses theories of community, caste, village religion, and industrialization. This book will interest sociologists and anthropologists interested in South Asia, community structure, caste, village-level religion, and the anthropology of work. Previously published in 1978 by the Institute for the Study of Human Issues.

Caste, caste association, caste federation and inequality as vocabularies:

Abstract: Despite the growing interest of the social sciences in social change, particularly modernity, ambiguities in these intellectual endeavours persist. These ambiguities may be most acute for social science efforts undertaken in societies such as India in which the quest for and the challenge of modernity is intense. For it is here that a vehicle of modernity, viz. nationalism, is most prominent. This is particularly troublesome if, as is often the case, social science analyses are anchored in the history and ethnocentrism of what are identified as modern societies; most often these

The Hindu Caste System and Muslim Ethnicity: The Labbai of a Tamil Village in South India

Abstract: Analyse de l'histoire d'un groupe musulman de langue Tamil, les Labbai, en Inde du Sud. Leur relation avec les groupes Hindous et le systeme de caste.