Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Dirks, Nicholas B

Titel

Castes of mind: colonialism and the making of modern India

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Princeton: Princeton University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon--the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's diverse forms of social identity and organization.