Please follow the link to read the article. The timing of the article is so perfect in my opinion, taking into consideration the discussions we had both in the class and outside it.
http://www.epw.in/perspectives/caste-and-castelessness.html
http://www.epw.in/perspectives/caste-and-castelessness.html
And what seems to be missing in the entire article is a mention of Bairy's work which asked the question that Deshpande is asking now in 2010.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.india-seminar.com/2012/633/633_ramesh_bairy_t_s.htm
ReplyDeleteThanks for calling our attention to this. He does say in a note that he has not given all the necessary attributions since this is from the book he is working on.. surely he is aware of Ramesh's work.. and anyway was probably also his teacher at HCU!
ReplyDeleteYou can see some of his other writings on caste that also address this question in some way..also linked to middle class
PS - In this article and also in the MNS Memorial lecture that he gave at NIAS several years ago, he uses the idea of 'caste as capital' -- which he is also developing in the book he is working on. Although I did not use the idea in exactly the same way (and certainly I would not write the same paper today), I would point to my 1997 CIS article on 'Social and Cultural Strategies of Class Formation' in which I also argue that caste is a form of social capital, although in a cruder way...just so you know..altho he probably won't reference that either.
ReplyDeleteCan we get the reference of both the articles here, so that this comment stream actually becomes a track of the sources which encourage us to think about caste as a 'privileged position'?
ReplyDeletedoes NIAS publish its memorial lectures?
DeleteCan't remember exactly where I have read Satish's stuff, try:
DeleteDeshpande, Satish and Mary E John (2010): “The
Politics of Not Counting Caste” in Economic &
Political Weekly, Vol 45, No 25, 19 June.
My piece:
Upadhya, Carol 1997 Social and cultural strategies of class formation in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology (N.S.) 31(2): 169-193.
Posting the link that Jananie had sent by email, and my response:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21970879
Thanks Jananie, I also saw an article on this in IHT/ NYT.. interesting discussions around how to define and measure classes. It's also interesting that UK engages in this exercise regularly, but I don't think there is anything similar in the US which imagines itself to be a classless (or completely 'middle class') society. Also that the researchers have operationalised the concepts of cultural/ social capital etc in this way.
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/britains-great-class-debate/?ref=europe
ReplyDeletemany thanks Rashmi! Read both the articles. Though not unknown, the debate around caste put in historical perspective by Deshpande is lucid and interesting. The absence of lit which shows how life chances get amplified by caste habitus is rather glaring and I hope my work will be one of those, perhaps like Bairy's (just going through Bairy's book at present to get a better idea of his arguments) that attempt to fill in some little gap :)
ReplyDeleteSanam, I just got hold of the copy of the audio record of Bairy's talk at EFLU in a hall full of eminent dalit studies scholars. This is the talk I was telling you about where he was asked to elaborate his agenda in trying to look at the image of Brahmin. I'll be happy to share it with you, and everyone in the class if you people are interested.
ReplyDelete