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.

Carnal economies: the commodification of food and sex in Kathmandu.

Abstract: This article is not about Nepals current political scene nor is it about these new "dance restaurants" per se but about larger cultural trends in the commodification of food and sex. The question of why these new leisure venues were thriving in such a grim sociopolitical context is probably worth a study of its own. However I am interested in these new "Restaurants with Dance" more as a continuation of an earlier pattern in Kathmandu namely the frequent link between restaurants and prostitution. Since I first began doing research in the city in the late 1980s I had been perplexed by the fact that local restaurants were often associated with prostitution. This puzzle launched my inquiry into the commercialization of food and sex in Kathmandu. Initially I wondered why these two consumer services--in their modern market-driven manifestations--should have become so often intertwined on Kathmandu streets and in the imaginations of middle-class patrons. A search for comparative data soon made it clear that a close symbiotic relationship between prostitution and restaurants (and other similar public commercial venues) has in fact been a hallmark of emergent capitalist social economies for centuries worldwide (a topic that I consider in more detail later). Yet these same comparative studies often served to highlight by way of contrast the very different historical and cultural dynamics at work in the South Asian context. In a society in which food and sex are extraordinarily marked and regulated cultural categories (often through minutely determined rules regulating with whom one may share food and sexual relations) both the history and contemporary cultural experience of sexual and culinary exchange unfold as unique local manifestations of broader patterns of commodification and market formation. This article traces the South Asian cultural themes of commensality and endogamy in their local Nepali variants through the processes of cultural renegotiation that have accompanied the shift in Kathmandus middle-class culture from a moral economy of caste to a moral economy of class. Kathmandus new "Restaurants with Dance" are only the most recent development in the process whereby food and sex commensality and endogamy are brought in line with a new logic of social value based in new patterns of market-oriented social relations. (excerpt)

The effects of migration on the establishment of networks: caste disintegration and reformation among the Indians of Fiji.

Abstract: This study examined the effects of type of migration on reformation of caste groups among the Indians of Fiji during 1880-1930. The Indians of Fiji had 5 distinct subcommunities and 3 types of migration context. Data were obtained from interviews among 50 people from suburban rural and urban areas of Vitu Levu island during 1989-90; participant observations during several short-term visits; and historic ethnographic archival research. This article begins with a review of the caste system and migration context followed by theorizing. It then describes the histories of the Fiji Indian groups with specific examples of how migrants reasons prevented or enabled them to establish subcaste groups in Fiji. The focus is on caste-free descendants of indentured workers that arrived in Fiji during 1879-1916 and caste-based descendants of non-labor migrants from Gujarat during 1900-30. It is concluded that the migration histories of indentured workers were very different from the free Gujarati immigrant experiences. The Gujarati community was able to form and maintain family and caste-based migration chains within their migration streams in Fiji. Indentured workers were prevented from reformation of caste groups overseas. The ability to establish and maintain migration chains determines the level of caste-related behavior overseas. The Punjabi community on Fiji was different from the previous 2 subcommunities because of their recruitment as labor from different districts and social groups which resulted in greater assimilation in the host society. Migration context directly affects the level of cultural reformation in the host society.

Social control over sex and caste in bees, wasps and ants

Abstract: (3) Wasps (Vespinae) . . . . IV. The honey-bee . . . . . v. Ants . . . . . . . (I) Myrmeciinae and Ponerinae . . (2) Formicinae . . . . . (3) Myrmicinae . . . . . (4) Other subfamilies . . . . ( 5 ) Queens laying eggs of both sexes . VI. Discussion . . . . . . VII. Summary . . . . . . VIII. Acknowledgements . . . . IX. References . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 7 9 . . . . . . 3 8 0 . . . . . . 3 8 4 . . . . . . 3 8 4 . . . . . . 3 8 6 . . . . . . 3 8 9

Caste and Gender in the Organisation of Paid Domestic Work in India

Abstract: There is now a large literature documenting the significance of paid domestic work as a sector of employment for women (Gregson and Lowe 1994; England and Steill 1997). In this article I focus on the ways in which gender hierarchies intersect with those of caste in the organisation of paid domestic work in a village on the outskirts of Delhi, India. The article has two broad aims. First, I seek to examine some of the ways in which paid domestic work is organised in India and highlight the social stratification that is central to the organisation of such work. I focus on part-time paid domestic work in which the tasks performed and the organisation of labour have specific spatial dimensions and are based on the caste division of labour. Part-time paid domestic workers usually live in their own households and visit the employer's house once or twice a day to perform the tasks for which they are paid. They often work in more than one house. Thus, part-time implies that the domestic worker's labour and time are not exclusively available to one employer, unlike the case of full-time domestic workers. Secondly, the article explores some aspects of the gendered re-negotiation of these tasks following urbanisation.