ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the case of the formerly dominant Saliyar community cluster in Balaramapuram town, Kerala, producing handloom textile products. Lessons drawn from this cluster’s experience are worth investigating to witness the kind of effect that thickly homophilous social and production networks (resting on historically rooted social and ethnic capital) can have on the long-standing dominance and eventual decline of this community. Evidence is provided that it is not just embeddedness alone but in its combination with homophily in various intensities, that is detrimental to clusters relying on information sharing chiefly through informal interaction.
