Transaction and hierarchy : elements for a theory of caste /
Transaction & hierarchy
Harald Tambs-Lyche.
- vii, 375 pages ; 23 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-367) and index.
Contents Acknowledgements ix 1. Precepts and Preliminaries 1 The Enigma of Caste 1 Three Objections 3 Theories of Caste to 1950 6 Early Sociology and G.S. Ghurye 7 Village Studies 9 Louis Dumont: An Integrated Theory of Caste 17 Alternative Approaches to Meaning: Marriott and the Chicago Indianists 19 Debating Caste: From the 1960s to the 1980s 22 From the 1980s to the Third Millennium 25 Where do we Stand Now? 27 Can we Still Talk of Different ‘Cultures’? 28 Is Anthropology a ‘Eurocentric’ Science? 30 My Own Voice 32 2. From History to the Individual 40 The Plan of the Book 40 Can we Construct a History of Caste? 45 Is there an Indian Brand of Individualism? 53 The ‘Modernist’ Individual 64 Individualist Discourses 66 Towards an Indian Conception of the Individual 68 3. From Individual to Community 85 Interaction in India and the West 85 On the Buses 88 In Train Compartments 92 Learning from Interaction 94 Inside, Outside and Among Communities 96 Caste, Family and the ‘We’ 98 Conceptions of Family 100 vi Contents ‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’ 103 The Diversity of Castes as Forms of Community 105 Castes Traditionally Employed in Agriculture 106 Ex-untouchables in Farming and Other Occupations 109 Artisans and Other Specialist Castes 111 Brahmins and Priestly Castes 113 General Remarks 114 4. Estates, History and the Village 124 Alternative Perspectives on Caste Society: The Estates 124 Other Estates 128 Brahmins and Untouchables 131 Ways of Living Together: Historicity and Power in the Village 137 Power and History in Small Villages: Saurashtra and Rajasthan 142 Relative Autonomy: Hamlets in the Periphery of Saurashtra 148 5. Integration, Hierarchy and Power 161 Integration and Hierarchy in a Large Saurashtra Village: Praj 161 Feudal Fiefs and Mosaic Patterns in South Kanara 169 Descendants of Pioneers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans 173 Brahmadeya Villages of Tamil Nadu 179 Power and Violence 186 The Moneylender and the Peasant 190 Custom as Politics 193 Caste in Modern Politics: South Kanara 195 Politics of Caste in Gujarat 198 6. Kings and Urban Society 207 Regional Authority and the Role of the King 207 Forms of Kingship: Gujarat and Northern India 210 Kingship in South India 215 A Tentative Typology of Indian Kingship 220 Urban Life: Power and Community 223 Pre-colonial Towns of Tamil Nadu 226 Vijayanagar in the Sixteenth Century 229 Surat, the Port of the Mughals 230 Temple Towns or Ritual Centres 233 Udupi: From Temple Centre to the Modern Town 235 Contents vii Power and Community in the Towns of Gujarat 237 Ahmedabad 238 Bombay: Metropolis with a Communitarian Structure 239 Calcutta and Other Metropolitan Centres 245 Caste and Urban Structure 248 7. Abstractions and Models 257 Urban Life: Community and Cosmopolitanism 257 Towards an Abstract Order 260 Indigenous Models of Indian Society 262 Abstract Models and Social Dynamics 264 Overarching Indigenous Models: The Brahmin Model 267 The King-centered Model 270 The Merchant Model 272 A Western Model of Stratification 274 Alternative Models of Western Society 279 Contesting the Holistic Models 280 The Models Subalterns Use 282 Hegemony and Subaltern Thought 284 Indigenous Models Today 286 8. A Discourse that Structures Hegemony 291 Caste and Hinduism 291 Is there a Hindu Pantheon? 292 A Historical Approach: Rise and Fall of the Gods 295 The Question of Integration through Ritual 298 Hierarchy Re-defined as Discourse 303 From Inequality to Hierarchy 304 Discourse as Assertion 305 Hierarchizing Discourse: An Example from Religion 308 Defining Hierarchizing Discourse 311 Inclusion or Separation: A Debate about Goddesses 313 Hierarchizing Discourses on Kingship 316 Discourse, Models and Hegemony 319 Dominant and Contesting Discourses 321 Discourse Structure and Social Reality 323 9. Conclusion 328 Bibliography 339 Index 369