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.

Understanding the Persistence of Caste: A Commentary on Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj and Kumar (2014)

Abstract: We contextualise Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj, and Kumar’s (2014) paper within a broader literature on caste and collective mobilisation. Cotterill and colleagues’ paper represents a fresh and timely attempt to make sense of the persistence of caste from the perspective of Social Dominance Theory. Cotterill and colleagues, however, do not examine caste differences in the endorsement of karma, and take behavioural asymmetry among lower castes for granted. Cotterill and colleagues also adhere to a Varna model of the caste system that arguably is simplistic and benefits the upper castes of Indian society. We caution that emphasising behavioural asymmetry and endorsing the Varna model might further stigmatise lower castes, especially Dalits, and feed into a conformity bias already predominant in caste-related psychological research. We argue that the conceptualisation and operationalisation of Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation and legitimising myths in the Indian context needs to take into account the particular meaning and functions of these constructs in specific intergroup contexts, and for identity positions salient within these contexts. We contend that any examination aimed at better understanding the nature of social hierarchy and oppression within the caste system and Indian society in general remains inconclusive without including a focus on the construction and contestation of social categories and social identities.

Disparities in earnings and education in India

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of different levels of education, religion, caste as well as the impact of living in urban and rural communities on earnings in India. Besides these conventional stratification, yet another academic caste which influence earnings—the English language ability, is also examined. The paper uses a large cross-section sample of India Human Development Survey to estimate Mincer and augmented Mincer equations. The rates of return estimates obtained in these data and method confirm that returns to education increase with the level of education across location, caste-religion and English language ability. Returns to lower levels of education are low across different groups, indicating the low quality of basic schooling in the country. Returns to higher education vary at a great deal ranging between 4.9% among the rural workers and 38.2% among fluent English ability group. This is in contrast to Duraisamy reporting the highest returns to secondary education in India, between th...

Caste, class synergies and discrimination in India

Abstract: There is sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that discrimination, defined as absence of equal opportunities, exists before the market as well as in the market against certain social categories in India. Inequality in access to sources of human capital acquisition reinforces inequality in the labour market and vice versa. Apparently, caste‐community discrimination and class discrimination overlap. However, in the case of socially deprived categories, the latter accentuates the former. The impact of modernisation notwithstanding, the inegalitarian sacral tradition of caste still has strong hold over the minds and lives of Indians. The development processes have strengthened caste and community consciousness resulting in the metamorphosis of different social categories into interest groups. With patron‐client relationship as the basis for political mobilization, development policies have favoured the dominant social categories as well as the articulate better‐off sections across all social categories. So it seems that “divinely ordained” social inequities persist in a secular garb, though possibly with reduced inhumanity. Yet, with increasing political assertion of the lower social categories and widening opportunities for social mobility, hegemony of the traditional elite is likely to decline. The change in the composition of the elite should foster non‐brahmanical pragmatic cultural ethos conducive to social mobility and development. The policies designed to promote equal opportunities, taking into account heterogeneity of Indian society, will speed up the process of socio‐economic change.

Race and Badge: Free-Colored Soldiers in the Colonial Mexican Militia

Abstract: The question of identity has been one of considerable importance to the study of race in Latin America. Particularly for the multitude of racially mixed offspring produced by miscegenation, it has been debated, what exactly was the degree of consciousness that race could produce? What degree of strength, if any, should be attributed to the caste boundaries created in the colonial period, and how did the reins of “caste” contribute to the 19th and 20th century heritage of the region? With the new and emerging research on the African Diaspora in Latin America, the question has often been asked: did the free mulatto, moreno, or pardo ever feel a specific identity, especially during colonial times, and especially when racial discourse was apparently created by, and served the interests of those who held the supreme positions of power?

The persistence of caste: the khairlanji murders and india's hidden apartheid

Abstract: Anand Teltumbde, THE PERSISTENCE OF CASTE: THE KHAIRLANJI MURDERS AND INDIA'S HIDDEN APARTHEID, London and New York: Zed Books, 2010, 169 pp., £18.99 (paper) In this important book, Teltumbde offer...