Carmel Christy Workshop | Writing on Caste

The South Asia Center at the Moynihan Institute presents Carmel Christy (Women’s and Gender Studies).

Caste has been extensively studied and written about in academia, journalism and policy documents in South Asia. Academic writings range from descriptive aspects to addressing socio-political context and radical ways to reimagining relations of caste. The first two frameworks have been explored extensively from the 1960s or earlier, such as in the works of Andre Beteille, Louis Dumont, G.S.Ghurye and so on. After Ambedkar in the early-to-mid 20th century, we see scholars from Dalit and Bahujan communities foregrounding the transformative potential of scholarship on caste since the 1990s. D. R. Nagaraj’s 1993 book “Flaming Feet,” Gopal Guru’s articles “Dalit Women Talk Differently” (1995) and “How Egalitarian are the Social Sciences in India” (2002) are some examples. Such works emerged in the context of the growth of anti-caste politics and Dalits’ literary assertions in the form of autobiographies in the 1980s and 1990s. 

For the last ten years, caste has been extensively studied in mainstream academic scholarship. With caste as a category becoming more discussed in academia, it would be pertinent to critically look at these writings to understand their trajectories and directions. Keeping this in mind, in this session, we will discuss our graduate scholars’ approaches to caste in their works to think together and chart out possible new pathways in anti-caste scholarship.

All participants in this student-driven workshop are expected to bring in 200-250 words that outline their approach to writing on caste in their own research—whether that research is complete or proposed—to be collectively discussed.

This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.