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"Caste identity"
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Indigeneity and occupational change : the tribes of Punjab
\"This book is about the presence of the absent- the tribes of Punjab, India, many of them still nomadic, constituting the poorest of the poor in the state. Drawing on exhaustive fieldwork and ethnographic accounts of more than 750 respondents, it explores the occupational change across generations to prove their presence in the state before the Criminal Tribes Act was implemented in 1871. The archival reports reveal the atrocities unleashed by the colonial government on these people. The volume shows how the post-colonial government too has proved no different; it has done little to bring them into the mainstream society by not exploiting their traditional expertise or equip them with modern skills. This book will be of great interest to the scholars of sociology, social anthropology, social history, public policy, development studies, tribal communities and South Asian studies.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Caste in Contemporary India: Flexibility and Persistence
The caste system, its salient characteristics, and its subtle and more obvious transformations, coupled with its persistence and pervasiveness, have been central to studies of Indian society. This review provides a specific view of caste and its transformations with an emphasis on the socioeconomic or labor market dimension. Such a perspective is particularly crucial as one of the distinctive features of caste is the inheritance of occupations. A major argument of modernization has been the increasing movement away from occupational inheritance. This review traces the limited support for the \"Orientalist\" view of caste as essentially unchanging and focuses on the fluid nature of caste and its transformation in the economic domain.
Journal Article
Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities
What are the mechanisms by which societal discrimination affects individual achievement, and why do the effects of past discrimination endure once legal barriers are removed? This paper reports the findings of two experiments in village India that suggest that the mechanisms of discrimination operate, in part, within the individuals who are members of the groups who have been discriminated against. it demonstrates that publicly revealing an individual's membership in such a group alters his behavior in ways that make the effects of past discrimination persist over time.
Journal Article
Before Mestizaje : The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico
\"From the dawn of Spain's venture into the New World until the end of its colonial regime, Spanish America was gripped by an almost innate need to process, categorize, and label human differences in an effort to manage its vast empire. Whether it was conquistadors seeking to establish grades of difference between themselves and native rulers, or simple artisans striving to distinguish themselves from their peers, people paid careful attention to what others looked like, how they lived, what they wore, and how they behaved. Over time, rules were created to contain transgressions. The wearing of costumes and masks outside of sanctioned events and holidays was soundly discouraged, lest disguises lead to crimes, immorality, and mistaken identities. People who lived as others could be labeled criminals, and those who moved across color boundaries to enjoy privileges not associated with their caste did so at their own risk and peril. When legislation failed to control behavior, social pressure impelled obedience and conformity\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Introduction: Tastes, Castes and Culture: the Influence of Society on Preferences
Economists have traditionally treated preferences as exogenously given. Preferences are assumed to be influenced by neither beliefs nor the constraints people face. As a consequence, changes in behaviour are explained exclusively in terms of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. Here, we argue that the opposition to explaining behavioural changes in terms of preference changes is ill-founded, that the psychological properties of preferences render them susceptible to direct social influences and that the impact of 'society' on preferences is likely to have important economic and social consequences.
Journal Article
Riot and Rebellion in Mexico
2023 Best Book in the Humanities, Latin American Studies
Association Mexico Section Challenging conventional narratives of
Mexican history, this book establishes race-making as a central
instrument for the repression of social upheaval in
nineteenth-century Mexico rather than a relic of the colonial-era
caste system. Many scholars assert that Mexico's complex
racial hierarchy, inherited from Spanish colonialism, became
obsolete by the turn of the nineteenth century as class-based
distinctions became more prominent and a largely mestizo population
emerged. But the residues of the colonial caste system did not
simply dissolve after Mexico gained independence. Rather, Ana Sabau
argues, ever-present fears of racial uprising among elites and
authorities led to persistent governmental techniques and
ideologies designed to separate and control people based on their
perceived racial status, as well as to the implementation of
projects for development in fringe areas of the country.
Riot and Rebellion in Mexico traces this race-based
narrative through three historical flashpoints: the Bajío riots,
the Haitian Revolution, and the Yucatan's caste war. Sabau shows
how rebellions were treated as racially motivated events rather
than political acts and how the racialization of popular and
indigenous sectors coincided with the construction of \"whiteness\"
in Mexico. Drawing on diverse primary sources, Sabau demonstrates
how the race war paradigm was mobilized in foreign and domestic
affairs and reveals the foundations of a racial state and racially
stratified society that persist today.
eBook
Caste and Punishment: the Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement
Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism. We study how the assignment to the top or bottom of the caste system affects the altruistic punishment of norm violations. Individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy exhibit a much lower willingness to punish norm violations that hurt members of their own caste. We can rule out self-selection into castes and control for wealth, education and political experience. We thus plausibly identify the impact of caste status on altruistic punishment. The lower willingness to punish may impair the low castes' ability to enforce contracts, to ensure property rights and sustain cooperation.
Journal Article
The Pleasures and Anxieties of Being in the Middle: Emerging Middle-Class Identities in Urban South India
Recent economic changes in India have coincided with a dramatic change in the concept of a ‘middle class’ in the south Indian city of Madurai. Whereas previous sets of class identities were overwhelmingly dichotomous (for example, the rich and the poor, or the ‘big people’ and ‘those who have nothing’), the middle class has now become a highly elaborated component of local class structures and identities. It is also a contested category; moreover, its indigenous boundaries differ from those most often used by scholars, marketers, or policy-makers. Drawing from research over the past decade, this paper examines local definitions of ‘middleness’ and the moralized meanings ascribed to it. Whilst being ‘in the middle’ is a source of pride and pleasure, connoting both achievement and enhanced self-control, it is simultaneously a source of great tension, bringing anxiety over the critical and damaging scrutiny of onlookers. For each positive aspect of a middle-class identity that emphasizes security and stability, there is a negative ramification or consequence that highlights the precariousness and potential instability of middle-class life. In exploring each of these aspects, I pay attention to the explicitly performative features of class identities. I conclude by considering the epistemological and experiential insights we gain into the construction of emergent class categories by focusing on self-ascribed identities and their performance.
Journal Article