Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169634
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Louis Dumont's modern classic, here presented in an enlarged, revised, and corrected second edition, simultaneously supplies that reader with the most cogent statement on the Indian caste system and its organizing principles and a provocative advance in the comparison of societies on the basis of their underlying ideologies. Dumont moves gracefully from the ethnographic data to the level of the hierarchical ideology encrusted in ancient religious texts which are revealed as the governing conception of the contemporary caste structure. On yet another plane of analysis, homo hierarchicus is contrasted with his modern Western antithesis, homo aequalis. This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics. A new Postface, which sketches the theoretical and comparative aspects of the concept of hierarchy, and three significant Appendixes previously omitted from the English translation complete this innovative and influential work.
Homo Hierarchicus
Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169634
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Louis Dumont's modern classic, here presented in an enlarged, revised, and corrected second edition, simultaneously supplies that reader with the most cogent statement on the Indian caste system and its organizing principles and a provocative advance in the comparison of societies on the basis of their underlying ideologies. Dumont moves gracefully from the ethnographic data to the level of the hierarchical ideology encrusted in ancient religious texts which are revealed as the governing conception of the contemporary caste structure. On yet another plane of analysis, homo hierarchicus is contrasted with his modern Western antithesis, homo aequalis. This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics. A new Postface, which sketches the theoretical and comparative aspects of the concept of hierarchy, and three significant Appendixes previously omitted from the English translation complete this innovative and influential work.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169634
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 542
Book Description
Louis Dumont's modern classic, here presented in an enlarged, revised, and corrected second edition, simultaneously supplies that reader with the most cogent statement on the Indian caste system and its organizing principles and a provocative advance in the comparison of societies on the basis of their underlying ideologies. Dumont moves gracefully from the ethnographic data to the level of the hierarchical ideology encrusted in ancient religious texts which are revealed as the governing conception of the contemporary caste structure. On yet another plane of analysis, homo hierarchicus is contrasted with his modern Western antithesis, homo aequalis. This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics. A new Postface, which sketches the theoretical and comparative aspects of the concept of hierarchy, and three significant Appendixes previously omitted from the English translation complete this innovative and influential work.
Homo Hierarchicus
Author: Dumont
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Homo Hierarchicus
Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195621334
Category : Caste
Languages : en
Pages : 490
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195621334
Category : Caste
Languages : en
Pages : 490
Book Description
Castes of Mind
Author: Nicholas B. Dirks
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840945
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
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. Dirks traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives; from the commentaries of an eighteenth-century Jesuit to the enumerative obsessions of the late-nineteenth-century census; from the ethnographic writings of colonial administrators to those of twentieth-century Indian scholars seeking to rescue ethnography from its colonial legacy. The book also surveys the rise of caste politics in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of caste-based movements that have threatened nationalist consensus. Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. And in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present, it makes an important contribution to current postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary Indian politics.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840945
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
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. Dirks traces the career of caste from the medieval kingdoms of southern India to the textual traces of early colonial archives; from the commentaries of an eighteenth-century Jesuit to the enumerative obsessions of the late-nineteenth-century census; from the ethnographic writings of colonial administrators to those of twentieth-century Indian scholars seeking to rescue ethnography from its colonial legacy. The book also surveys the rise of caste politics in the twentieth century, focusing in particular on the emergence of caste-based movements that have threatened nationalist consensus. Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. And in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present, it makes an important contribution to current postcolonial theory and scholarship on contemporary Indian politics.
An Introduction to Two Theories of Social Anthropology
Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845451479
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Louis Dumont, who died in 1998, was one of the most important figures in post-war French anthropology. He is well-known for his early work on India, which culminated in Homo Hierarchicus (1966; in English 1972, 1980), an anthropological account of the caste system. He later extended this work into a comparison of the values of Indian and western society in works like Essays on Individualism (1986) and German ideology: From France to Germany and Back (1994). He is also known for pioneering work on kinship in south India and more generally (for example Affinity as a Value, 1983). The current volume represents the fruits of this side of his activities and originated in as a series of lectures providing an account of the British and French schools for students.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845451479
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Book Description
Louis Dumont, who died in 1998, was one of the most important figures in post-war French anthropology. He is well-known for his early work on India, which culminated in Homo Hierarchicus (1966; in English 1972, 1980), an anthropological account of the caste system. He later extended this work into a comparison of the values of Indian and western society in works like Essays on Individualism (1986) and German ideology: From France to Germany and Back (1994). He is also known for pioneering work on kinship in south India and more generally (for example Affinity as a Value, 1983). The current volume represents the fruits of this side of his activities and originated in as a series of lectures providing an account of the British and French schools for students.
The Poison in the Gift
Author: Gloria Goodwin Raheja
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226707280
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
The Poison in the Gift is a detailed ethnography of gift-giving in a North Indian village that powerfully demonstrates a new theoretical interpretation of caste. Introducing the concept of ritual centrality, Raheja shows that the position of the dominant landholding caste in the village is grounded in a central-peripheral configuration of castes rather than a hierarchical ordering. She advances a view of caste as semiotically constituted of contextually shifting sets of meanings, rather than one overarching ideological feature. This new understanding undermines the controversial interpretation advanced by Louis Dumont in his 1966 book, Homo Hierarchicus, in which he proposed a disjunction between the ideology of hierarchy based on the "purity" of the Brahman priest and the "temporal power" of the dominant caste or the king.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226707280
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
The Poison in the Gift is a detailed ethnography of gift-giving in a North Indian village that powerfully demonstrates a new theoretical interpretation of caste. Introducing the concept of ritual centrality, Raheja shows that the position of the dominant landholding caste in the village is grounded in a central-peripheral configuration of castes rather than a hierarchical ordering. She advances a view of caste as semiotically constituted of contextually shifting sets of meanings, rather than one overarching ideological feature. This new understanding undermines the controversial interpretation advanced by Louis Dumont in his 1966 book, Homo Hierarchicus, in which he proposed a disjunction between the ideology of hierarchy based on the "purity" of the Brahman priest and the "temporal power" of the dominant caste or the king.
Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age
Author: Susan Bayly
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521798426
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
The phenomenon of caste has probably aroused more controversy than any other aspect of Indian life and thought. Susan Bayly's cogent and sophisticated analysis explores the emergence of the ideas, experiences and practices which gave rise to the so-called 'caste society' from the pre-colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. Using an historical and anthropological approach, she frames her analysis within the context of India's dynamic economic and social order, interpreting caste not as an essence of Indian culture and civilization, but rather as a contingent and variable response to the changes that occurred in the subcontinent's political landscape through the colonial conquest. The idea of caste in relation to Western and Indian 'orientalist' thought is also explored.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521798426
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
The phenomenon of caste has probably aroused more controversy than any other aspect of Indian life and thought. Susan Bayly's cogent and sophisticated analysis explores the emergence of the ideas, experiences and practices which gave rise to the so-called 'caste society' from the pre-colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. Using an historical and anthropological approach, she frames her analysis within the context of India's dynamic economic and social order, interpreting caste not as an essence of Indian culture and civilization, but rather as a contingent and variable response to the changes that occurred in the subcontinent's political landscape through the colonial conquest. The idea of caste in relation to Western and Indian 'orientalist' thought is also explored.
Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies
Author: Jean Antoine Dubois
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hinduism
Languages : en
Pages : 782
Book Description
For 30 years the author, a French missionary, lived among the Hindus, adopting their dress and customs and studying their social and religious institutions. The English government found this account of the results of his observations valuable enough to translate and publish it for the use of officials and oriental students.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hinduism
Languages : en
Pages : 782
Book Description
For 30 years the author, a French missionary, lived among the Hindus, adopting their dress and customs and studying their social and religious institutions. The English government found this account of the results of his observations valuable enough to translate and publish it for the use of officials and oriental students.
Essays on Individualism
Author: Louis Dumont
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169588
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Louis Dumont's Essays on Individualism is an ambitious attempt to place the modern ideology of individualism in a broad anthropological perspective. The result of twenty years of scholarship and inquiry, the interrelated essays gathered here not only trace the genesis and growth of individualism as the dominant force in Western philosophy, but also analyze the differences between this modern system of thought and those of other, nonmodern cultures. The collection represents an important contribution to Western society's understanding of itself and its place in the world.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226169588
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
Louis Dumont's Essays on Individualism is an ambitious attempt to place the modern ideology of individualism in a broad anthropological perspective. The result of twenty years of scholarship and inquiry, the interrelated essays gathered here not only trace the genesis and growth of individualism as the dominant force in Western philosophy, but also analyze the differences between this modern system of thought and those of other, nonmodern cultures. The collection represents an important contribution to Western society's understanding of itself and its place in the world.
Categories of Self
Author: André Celtel
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1789203767
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Drawing on anthropological, socio-psychological, religious, and philosophical material, this book engages in a discussion of what it means to be an ‘individual’ in relation to notions of selfhood, personality, and social role. This theme is explored with reference to the investigations of Louis Dumont into Hindu and other Indian ideologies, and with regard to the dominant threads of Western individualism. Clarifying and at times building upon his analyses, the author follows Dumont in a consideration of Indian ideology (Hindu non-individualism, the ‘dividual’, social personhood); French ideology (sociopolitical individualism); German ideology (subjective individualism); and Western ideology (the Christian beginnings of individualism, political and economic individualism, the philosophical ‘categorisation’ of self). While most commentators have tended to focus primarily on one aspect of Dumont's work – either his views on Indian hierarchy or writings on modern individualism – the author reveals considerable continuity throughout Dumont’s entire oeuvre based around the notion of 'categories' and the concept of the 'individual’. Dumont’s intellectual background is explored with reference to the Durkheimian tradition, with Marcel Mauss being highlighted as the principal architect in his thinking. In particular, Dumont’s interest in the ‘category of the individual’ is shown to be an extension of Mauss’s concern with the ‘category of the person’. The distinctiveness of Dumont’s structuralist approach is thrown into full relief through comparison with that of others acknowledging an intellectual dept to Mauss, namely, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel. The book covers an assessment of general approaches to the study of individualism, with the relevant perspectives of other thinkers discussed and related to Dumont’s approach as appropriate.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1789203767
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Drawing on anthropological, socio-psychological, religious, and philosophical material, this book engages in a discussion of what it means to be an ‘individual’ in relation to notions of selfhood, personality, and social role. This theme is explored with reference to the investigations of Louis Dumont into Hindu and other Indian ideologies, and with regard to the dominant threads of Western individualism. Clarifying and at times building upon his analyses, the author follows Dumont in a consideration of Indian ideology (Hindu non-individualism, the ‘dividual’, social personhood); French ideology (sociopolitical individualism); German ideology (subjective individualism); and Western ideology (the Christian beginnings of individualism, political and economic individualism, the philosophical ‘categorisation’ of self). While most commentators have tended to focus primarily on one aspect of Dumont's work – either his views on Indian hierarchy or writings on modern individualism – the author reveals considerable continuity throughout Dumont’s entire oeuvre based around the notion of 'categories' and the concept of the 'individual’. Dumont’s intellectual background is explored with reference to the Durkheimian tradition, with Marcel Mauss being highlighted as the principal architect in his thinking. In particular, Dumont’s interest in the ‘category of the individual’ is shown to be an extension of Mauss’s concern with the ‘category of the person’. The distinctiveness of Dumont’s structuralist approach is thrown into full relief through comparison with that of others acknowledging an intellectual dept to Mauss, namely, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel. The book covers an assessment of general approaches to the study of individualism, with the relevant perspectives of other thinkers discussed and related to Dumont’s approach as appropriate.