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.

Social Media in South India

Abstract: One of the first ethnographic studies to explore use of social media in the everyday lives of people in Tamil Nadu, Social Media in South India provides an understanding of this subject in a region experiencing rapid transformation. The influx of IT companies over the past decade into what was once a space dominated by agriculture has resulted in a complex juxtaposition between an evolving knowledge economy and the traditions of rural life. While certain class tensions have emerged in response to this juxtaposition, a study of social media in the region suggests that similarities have also transpired, observed most clearly in the blurring of boundaries between work and life for both the old residents and the new. Venkatraman explores the impact of social media at home, work and school, and analyses the influence of class, caste, age and gender on how, and which, social media platforms are used in different contexts. These factors, he argues, have a significant effect on social media use, suggesting that social media in South India, while seeming to induce societal change, actually remains bound by local traditions and practices.

Culture and Economic Development in South Asia

Abstract: The influence of culture on economic development in South Asia has drawn scholarly interest since Max Weber argued that the rise of Protestantism abetted the origination of capitalism. Weber claimed that the spirituality and otherworldliness of Hinduism, along with its associated caste system, were not compatible with this new economic constellation. This sharp dichotomy posited by Weber and others has not been borne out by India's complex post-independence experience. Castes act as interest associations in India's democracy. India's labor force has become increasingly skilled and differentiated. From the Green Revolution onward, India's farmers have consistently raised yields to meet food needs. Large firms governed within joint families have succeeded in the domestic and global realms. South Asian culture and social patternings are best perceived as a multifarious resource out of which the subcontinent's future will be constructed rather than as universally stultifying features.

Power and Solidarity: Clientage in Domestic Service [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract: This study investigates a role-specific vertical solidarity in South India, where urban Christian households employ rural Christians as domestics. The mistress-servant bond is characterized by the paradoxical features of subordination and devotion, unconditionality and instrumentality, sentiment and social distance. Their bond may appear to be dyadic, but in fact it implies a network of reciprocities among multiple social actors: the families of the employer and employee, the intermediaries between them, religious functionaries, and the audience of fellow regligionists. The domestic clientage is rooted in an economic precondition, but it is legitimated and structured within the prevalent caste idiom and functions within a specific institutional framework that determines the options for the participants and the modes of control they exercise.

Parental Education as a Criterion for Affirmative Action in Higher Education

Abstract: Affirmative action, in the form of reservation policies, to address the issues of inclusion has been in place in India for a long time. While its scope has enlarged with inclusion of new social groups, the efficacy remains a matter of debate. This paper explores if parental education is an appropriate criterion for affirmative action. Empirical results using three rounds of the National Sample Survey data suggest that parental education as a determinant of participation in higher education not only transcends the impact of caste, religious and economic status, it is also very attractive for the ease of implementation.

One Kind of Democracy

Abstract: This paper explores the performance of rural governance institutions (Gram Panchayats) in Maharashtra, India. The results of a detailed set of household and village surveys we conducted point to a stunningly robust and participatory democratic process: Elections are freely contested, fairly tallied, highly participatory, non-coerced and lead to political representation believed by voters to strongly reflect their will. However, poverty alleviation schemes (one of the main tasks of rural Gram Panchayats) are patchy and poorly implemented. Beneath this veneer of representative democracy we find evidence of deeply ingrained clientilist structures. These allow land-owning elites of a leading caste (Marathas) to maintain political power which they use to undermine poverty alleviating policies that would redistribute income away from them. We explore theoretically the means by which this caste is able to use its dominance of land-ownership and its traditional position of caste ascendency to achieve political control. The data also allows us to test, both directly and indirectly, differing hypotheses regarding the means by which cultural power (caste) and land ownership yield political power for the elite even in a highly representative, fair and participatory democratic setting.