2. I: Framing of the western view of
inequality.
The idea of ‘society’ as an object of study for
sociology.
Structural differentiation.
Rise of a choice making rational individual : in
the market place; in politics; in civil society.
3. Culture as feature of the “non-west”
Non-west was culture bound: traditional or
primitive.
Communitarian and ethnic.
Post-colonial: underdeveloped or developing
Third World
Their development would make them like
societies of the west: modernization.
5. Qualitative inequalities
Non-western countries: inequalities are
structural, stable and closed.
Caste system in India, an example of qualitative
inequality: Homo-hierarchichus (Louis
Dumont).
Ruled by ritual: purity and pollution.
Hierarchy and humiliation.
Inequality: a value and valued in everyday life.
6. Problems?
Individualization makes qualitative inequalities
invisible in the west. Even gender and race do
not become part of the mainstream discourse
on inequality. Resistance to affirmative
action?
The idea of difference (binaries) tend to
Naturalize inequalities in countries like India
(ahistorical).
7. II: What’s happening to caste?
India is no longer a “traditional” culture.
Decline of agriculture: 14% of national income
Fragmentation of the rural-growing influence of
the urban
Institutionalization of a constitutional
democracy.
8. Decline of caste as a system of
interdependencies.
Initiatives from “above”
Pressures from “below”
Changes from the “side”
However, caste inequalities persist. Public
presence of caste has increased. Caste
identities have hardened.
9. Dominant view of persistence of caste
Primarily because of its politicization
Because of its institutionalization by the state
(quota)
Incomplete modernization of India (continuities
and change)
10. Making sense of its reproduction
Persistence of caste in everyday life: endogamy;
violence against Dalits; identities.
Persistence of caste in India’s urban informal
economy (mostly structured around caste
lines)
Persistence of caste in corporate hiring: the top
is almost exclusively upper-caste and Hindu.
11. III: What do we learn from caste?
Qualitative inequalities persist everywhere in
the world today and they tend to overlap with
quantitative inequalities.
Caste as a comparative frame: Emerging
conceptual and empirical literature on the
reproduction of caste could provide a useful
framework for engaging with emerging with
qualitative inequalities in other parts of world.
