ABSTRACT

Through its investigation of the underlying political economy of gender, caste and class in India, this book shows how changing historical geographies are shaping the subjectivities of Dalits across India in ways that are neither fixed nor predictable. It brings together ethnographies from across India to explore caste politics, Dalit feminism and patriarchy, religion, economics and the continued socio-economic and political marginalisation of Dalits.

With contributions from major academics this is an indispensable book for researchers, teachers and students working on new political expressions, gender identities, social inequalities and the continuing use of the notion of ‘caste’ identity in the oppression of subalterns in contemporary India. It will be essential reading in the disciplines of politics, gender, social exclusion studies, sociology and social anthropology.

chapter |50 pages

Introduction We ask you to rethink

Different Dalit women and their subaltern politics

part I|44 pages

Imagining a new Dalit women’s politics

chapter 1|22 pages

Foreword

Dalits, Dalit women and the Indian State

chapter 2|20 pages

For another difference

Agency, representation and Dalit women in contemporary India 1

part II|92 pages

Dalit women’s conceptualizations of caste difference and their means of collectivization

chapter 3|34 pages

Gendered negotiations of caste identity

Dalit women’s activism in rural Tamil Nadu

chapter 5|29 pages

Microcredit self-help groups and Dalit women

Overcoming or essentializing caste difference?

part III|89 pages

A broken empowerment? Are women still trapped by caste and patriarchy?

chapter 7|28 pages

Different Dalit women speak differently

Unravelling, through an intersectional lens, narratives of agency and activism from everyday life in rural Uttar Pradesh

chapter 8|30 pages

Subsidising capitalism and male labour

The scandal of unfree Dalit female labour relations *

part IV|74 pages

Religion as Dalit political practice

chapter 9|26 pages

Transformation and the suffering subject

Caste-class and gender in slum Pentecostal discourse

chapter 10|30 pages

Improper politics

The praxis of subalterns in Chennai

chapter |16 pages

Afterword The burden of caste

Scholarship, democratic movements and activism