Beyond caste : identity and power in South Asia, past and present / by Sumit Guha.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guha, Sumit.

Series:

Brill's Indological library ; v. 44.

Brill's Indological library, 0925-2916 ; volume 44

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity--South Asia--History.

Group identity.

Caste--South Asia--History.

Caste.

Power (Social sciences)--South Asia--History.

Power (Social sciences).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Place of Publication:

Leiden : Brill, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Caste' is today almost universally perceived as an ancient and unchanging Hindu institution preserved solely by a deep-seated religious ideology. Yet the word itself is an importation from sixteenth-century Europe. This book tracks the long history of the practices amalgamated under this label and shows their connection to changing patterns of social and political power down to the present. It frames caste as an involuted and complex form of ethnicity and explains why it persisted under non-Hindu rulers and in non-Hindu communities across South Asia.

Contents:

Front Matter

Governing Caste: The Study of State Power and Ethnic Rank in South Asia

The Birth of Caste

Territorial Power: The Spatial Dimension of Social Organization

The Political Economy of Village Life

A Locus of Sociopolitical Organization: The Household

Ruling, Identifying, and Counting: Knowledge and Power in Eighteenth-Century India

Empires, Nations, and the Politics of Ethnic Identity, c. 1800–2000

Afterword

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-25485-4

OCLC:

858653366

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004254855 DOI