Change and Mobility in Contemporary India

Change and Mobility in Contemporary India
Author: Sobin George
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2019-09-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000692760

This book studies caste and community dynamics in India and offers a critical view of social mobility from below. Building on the theories of the eminent sociologist M N Srinivas, the essays in this volume reformulate the debate on caste as they document the changing inter-caste dynamics and caste-based violence in contemporary India. The volume showcases the new language of change in caste relations, articulated mostly from the perspective of the marginalised as experiences, differences, contestations, assertions and as citizenship rights. It focusses on the clash between traditional structures of inequality and the ideals of equality and justice in a liberal, democratic India. It also highlights the persistence of caste and endogamy and the interlocking nature of caste, gender and disability, struggles of ethnic groups and informal workers in the market economy, discrimination in the labour market and the dissolution of dissent in the public sphere. With contributions from leading scholars of social change and development in India and abroad, this volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of sociology, social anthropology, minority and subaltern studies, and development studies.

Uneven Odds

Uneven Odds
Author: Divya Vaid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199093644

Focussing on patterns of intergenerational stability, this book traces the unequal structures of opportunity in India. The author addresses questions and approaches towards social mobility (or the lack thereof) through interactions between social class, caste, and gender while adopting a rural–urban perspective, capturing changes over time, and the implications of social mobility on a national scale. This book plugs in crucial gaps in the research on social mobility, which has been marked by the lack of precision regarding the extent of mobility in contemporary India. Using a broad lens of both caste and class, this up-to-date statistical analysis, which uses national-level datasets and advanced quantitative methods, enriches the sociological as well as the anthropological literature, while also locating India within the larger context of social mobility research in the industrialized and industrializing world.

Social Change in Modern India

Social Change in Modern India
Author: Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1995
Genre: India
ISBN: 9788125004226

This Volume Is A Compilation Of A Series Of Lectures Delivered By The Eminent Social Anthropologist M. N. Srinivas. These Lectures Have Been Widely Acclaimed And Have Since Been Recommended Or Prescribed As A Text For Students Of Sociology, Anthropology And Indian Studies. The Book Remains The Classic Of Social Anthropology As It Was Hailed, When First Published.

Intergenerational Mobility

Intergenerational Mobility
Author: Rajarshi Majumder
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2013-04-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8132211308

​Discrimination and exclusion in the process of capability formation and the labor market transcend the boundaries of the current generation and spill over to successive generations as well. Though a plethora of work has been done at the international level, the area has not been the focus of Indian economic research despite social exclusion and disparity having been quite substantial in India, especially the division along caste lines. The book addresses this research gap and explores the issue of intergenerational mobility across different social classes in the Indian context, analyzing the spheres of both education and occupation. We contend that parental education and occupation have a significantly greater impact on educational attainment and occupational choice for socially excluded groups compared to the advanced groups. In the labor market, intergenerational mobility is low and most of it is lateral and not vertical, increasing the possibility of discrimination in the labor market. This book highlights the fact that the long history of social exclusion has had a lasting effect and it is very difficult to come out of this inertia.

Caste in Contemporary India

Caste in Contemporary India
Author: SurinderS. Jodhka
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351572628

Caste is a contested terrain in India's society and polity. This book explores contemporary realities of caste in rural and urban India. Presenting rich empirical findings across north India, it presents an original perspective on the reasons for the persistence of caste in India today.

Contemporary Demographic Transformations in China, India and Indonesia

Contemporary Demographic Transformations in China, India and Indonesia
Author: Christophe Z. Guilmoto
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2015-12-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319247832

This book examines the profound demographic transformation affecting China, India, and Indonesia, where 40% of the world's people live. It offers a systematic, comparative approach that will help readers to better understand the changing social and regional recomposition of the population in these regions. The chapters present a detailed investigation and mapping of regional trends in mortality, fertility, migration and urbanization, education, and aging. Throughout, the analysis carefully considers how these trends affect economic and social development. Coverage also raises global, theoretical questions about the singular ways in which each of these three countries have achieved their demographic transition. As the authors reveal, demographic trends seem to be somewhat linear and anticipatable, providing Asia’s three demographic giants and their governments a formidable advantage in planning for the future. But the evolution of human mobility in China, India, and Indonesia, closely intertwined as it is with changing economic conditions, appears less predictable and ranks high among the major challenges to demographic knowledge in the coming decades. Offering an insightful look into the components, implications, and regional variations of a changing population, this book will appeal to social scientists, demographers, anthropologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, and specialists in Asian studies.

Caste, Social Inequality and Mobility in Rural India

Caste, Social Inequality and Mobility in Rural India
Author: K. L. Sharma
Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789353282011

Caste, Social Inequality and Mobility in Rural India: Reconceptualising the Indian Village investigates and presents a holistic view of today’s rural India by analysing different social aspects such as caste, migration, mobility, education and inequalities. It further studies the village social structure comprising peasants, artisans, weavers and the middle class, and the role of education in reshaping the social life of rural people. It challenges current conceptualisation and understanding of caste as a system, caste mobility, caste–class polarity and country–town divide. This book also argues that caste as a system has ceased to exist, but caste persists discretely as a non-systemic means of appropriation for political and social ends. This interdisciplinary dynamic study reconceptualises the ‘village’ by explaining the emerging social trends and patterns of social stratification in contemporary rural India.

Stepping into the Elite

Stepping into the Elite
Author: Jules Naudet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199093652

The experience of shifting from one social class to another—from a dominated group to a dominant group—raises the question of how the upwardly mobile person relates to his/her group of origin. Stepping into the Elite traces the particular ways in which upwardly mobile people in India, France, and the United States—countries embodying three distinct stratification systems—make sense of this change. Given that people draw upon specific cultural tools or repertoires to analyse their world and situate themselves in it, Naudet identifies the extent to which narratives of ‘success’ vary from one country to another. For instance, he explains that while stories in a caste-ridden society such as India hinge on the preservation of bonds with the original class, in France, they are centered on the idea that an upwardly mobile person is alienated from all social groups. In the United States, on the other hand, the rhetoric of success is tinged by the ardent belief in the American society being classless. A sociological journey in three different cultural contexts, this book deftly ties the exploration of questions regarding transformation of social identity and views on being successful.

Social Mobility in Developing Countries

Social Mobility in Developing Countries
Author: Vegard Iversen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 506
Release: 2021-12-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0192650734

Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines—typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?

The Caste of Merit

The Caste of Merit
Author: Ajantha Subramanian
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 067424348X

How the language of “merit” makes caste privilege invisible in contemporary India. Just as Americans least disadvantaged by racism are most likely to endorse their country as post‐racial, Indians who have benefited from their upper-caste affiliation rush to declare their country post‐caste. In The Caste of Merit, Ajantha Subramanian challenges this comfortable assumption by illuminating the controversial relationships among technical education, caste formation, and economic stratification in modern India. Through in-depth study of the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)—widely seen as symbols of national promise—she reveals the continued workings of upper-caste privilege within the most modern institutions. Caste has not disappeared in India but instead acquired a disturbing invisibility—at least when it comes to the privileged. Only the lower castes invoke their affiliation in the political arena, to claim resources from the state. The upper castes discard such claims as backward, embarrassing, and unfair to those who have earned their position through hard work and talent. Focusing on a long history of debates surrounding access to engineering education, Subramanian argues that such defenses of merit are themselves expressions of caste privilege. The case of the IITs shows how this ideal of meritocracy serves the reproduction of inequality, ensuring that social stratification remains endemic to contemporary democracies.