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Caste

About: Caste is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5681 publications have been published within this topic receiving 91330 citations. The topic is also known as: caste system.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Myth of Population Control as discussed by the authors, based on a micro-demographic study of this village in the early 1970s, has had a strong influence on thinking about population policy in India as well as internationally.
Abstract: Manupur, one of the more than a half-million villages of India, has acquired a special place in the field of population. Mahmood Mamdani's 1972 book, The Myth of Population Control, ' based on a microdemographic study of this village in the early 1970s, has had a strong influence on thinking about population policy in India as well as internationally. It expressed forcefully the fashionable view of the early 1 970s that family planning programs are of little use to the villagers of developing countries. Mamdani interviewed Manupur men of all castes and occupational classes and quotes their views copiously in the book. All, rich and poor, landholder and landless alike, conveyed the same message: because children, particularly sons, are economically valuable as a source of household and paid labor, as insurance against various risks and old-age disability, and as providers of remittances from outside the village, Manupur villagers want as many children as possible, and, hence, family planning does not make sense to them. Using data collected in 1982 from the same village, this paper shows that the family planning attitudes and behavior of villagers are now significantly different from those documented by Mamdani, and seeks to relate these differences to socioeconomic changes that have occurred in the village. Manupur is located in Punjab, which was the pioneer and most successful among Indian states in implementing the agricultural technology of the green revolution. At the time of Mamdani's investigation, Manupur farmers, all of whom are Jat by caste,2 were already benefiting from improved varieties of wheat and mechanization of some agricultural activities. Mamdani found, however, that benefits actually increased the demand for agricultural laborand, consequently, the labor value of children-among both landholders and landless laborers. He also cited examples to show that introduction of new technology-for example, the sewing machine-deprived many artisans of

32 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article focuses on the specific hurdles of two marginalized groups-Dalit (Untouchable) women in India and African American women in the United States-in order to investigate questions of power, identity, and oppression among them, and constructs a "margin-to-margin" framework to investigate the possibilities of solidarity between the two groups of women.
Abstract: The new millennium began with a dialogue between caste and race among activists at the United Nations Durban Conference on Racism and Racial Discrimination, 2001. It was at this conference that the universal human rights discourse engaged with the specifics of caste stratification and discrimination in India. In the wake of this historical moment, I conceived my idea of "building bridges" to outline a comparative model that might allow us to expand the contours of feminist theory and praxis and provide a blueprint for agitations that call for structural changes. More specifically, in this article I concentrate on the specific hurdles of two marginalized groups-Dalit (Untouchable) women in India and African American women in the United States-in order to investigate questions of power, identity, and oppression among them.Delving into personal experiences of Dalit and African American womens day-to-day living, I construct a "margin-to-margin" framework to investigate the possibilities of solidarity between the two groups of women, given the shared history of patriarchy as well as the ways they have been silenced by women from the dominant caste/race. By a margin-to-margin framework, I mean the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate margins (for my purposes, caste and race and Dalit and African American women), in order to construct new knowledge and enable political solidarity to build conscious and sustained commitment to challenge social injustice. Moreover, I argue that centering on the particular historical experiences, specific contexts, contradictions, and connections between the marginalized "Dalit of the Dalits"-Dalit and African American women-allows for the most inclusive and productive politics, developing of new feminist frameworks, and critical decoding of systemic power structures.The timing of Dalit and African American womens solidarity is most significant because the U.S. Congress (like its British and European counterparts) has seriously begun to recognize the issue of caste in India. Significantly, working margin to margin privileges avantage point from which to analyze the deep and common continuities of structures of law, education, feminism, capital, and labor affecting Dalit and African American women in different contexts. An intergroup exchange and feminist engagement facilitates the envisioning of broader and joint struggles between subordinated populations across the globe. It also promotes political possibilities for women to express their alternative views of the conceptual categories as well as actual processes of caste, race, gender and sexuality, and feminism (s).My essay makes important contributions to colonial history and feminist theory and practice. Most significantly, it highlights the politics of "location" within South Asia as a critical ground for producing new theoretical frameworks in feminism. In this essay, I use the particular dynamics of the South Asian position and, more specifically, the Dalit condition to engage with African American feminists in the United States and scrutinize history, revise certain feminist insights, and provide tools to tackle contemporary challenges of feminism. I draw upon works of Dalit and African American "womanist-humanists," such as Baby Kamble, Shantabai Kamble, Kumud Pawde, Urmila Pawar, Shantabai Dani, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberle Crenshaw, and Audre Lorde, and analyze some shared historical experiences and feminist and political theories.1Thinking "Margin to Margin": Practicing Political SolidarityMethodologically, I use the margin-to-margin framework for two intimately tied purposes: to open up lived experiences as epistemic spaces and to use the newly produced knowledge to practice political solidarity. I depart from earlier studies (that focused mainly on men) and privilege Dalit and African American womens voices to rethink old and study new contexts of marginalization. I am committed to the reciprocity between scholarship and activism and hence to the dialectical relationship between the scholarly production of knowledge about Dalit and African American women, political activism, and feminist practice and political questions of representation, equality, and solidarity. …

32 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The caste system, according to the currently prevalent view, is based on purity, each caste being located on a hierarchical gradation of purity, a thesis laid out most compellingly by Louis Dumont.
Abstract: The caste system, according to the currently prevalent view, is based on purity, each caste being located on a hierarchical gradation of purity, a thesis laid out most compellingly by Louis Dumont....

31 citations

01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors carried out a study of residential segregation in the 10 most populated Indian cities using ward-level data released by the census, and found that there is significant residential segregation by caste and also by access to in-house drinking water, a basic public good.
Abstract: Using ward-level data released by the census, the paper carries out a study of residential segregation in the 10 most populated Indian cities. It finds that there is significant residential segregation by caste and also by access to in-house drinking water, a basic public good, and access to in-house latrines, a basic private good. Further, in the case of some cities covered in the study, the proportion of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes in wards is highly correlated with access to public, private, and luxury goods.

31 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023585
20221,232
2021241
2020254
2019243
2018247