Class and Caste

Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India

This paper analyzes how preferences for a noneconomic characteristic (e.g., caste) can affect equilibrium patterns of matching, and empirically evaluates this in the context of middle-class Indian arranged marriages. We show theoretically how the equilibrium consequences of caste depend on whether preferences are towards one’s own group or for “marrying up.” We then estimate actual preferences ...

“So, you want to marry my daughter?” The Caste System: An Overview

Preamble The phenomenon of Caste has aroused more controversy than any other aspect of Indian life and thought. Some see India’s caste system as the defining feature of Indian culture and some have dismissed it as a colonial artefact. Since the days of the British rule, both historians and anthropologists referred to India as a ‘caste society’. Obviously this is an overstatement of the importan...

The influence of caste, class and gender in surviving multiple disasters: A case study from Orissa, India

Sociological and anthropological studies in India reveal that caste, class and gender in everyday life are both rigid and dynamic, but little is known about how they influence the survival mechanisms of women during ‘multiple disasters’, nor about how women negotiate with these structural mores to meet their cultural and biological needs. This is explored through the experiences of 12 women-hea...

Caste in Itself, Caste and Class, or Caste in Class

A fter the British conquered Bengal and eventually the whole of India, they set out to administer the colony. In this context they encountered two phenomena with which they were not familiar: (1) the relation of people to land for production (and not for revenue receiving, household living, etc.), and (2) the caste system of India, viz. the jati stratifi cation of society. Soon they realized th...

Caste, Class and Race: Continuities and Discontinuities across Indian and South African Schools

Inclusion in Education’, IDS Bulletin, 34, 1 (2003), 1–8, and Y. Sayed, R. Subrahmanian, C. Soudien, S. Balagopalan and N. Carrim, Education Exclusion and Inclusion: Policy and Implementation in India and South Africa (London, forthcoming). In writing this article I am heavily indebted to my colleagues on this project, Sayed, Subrahmanian, Balagopalan and Carrim. The interpretation I generate h...

Caste, Class, and Social Change: An Institutionalist Perspective