1st Edition

Dalit Women Honour and Patriarchy in South India

By Clarinda Still Copyright 2017
    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    268 Pages
    by Routledge

    One of the only ethnographic studies of Dalit women, this book gives a rich account of individual Dalit women’s lives and documents a rise in patriarchy in the community. The author argues that as Dalits’ economic and political position improves, ‘honour’ becomes crucial to social status. One of the ways Dalits accrue honour is by altering patterns of women’s work, education and marriage, and by adopting dominant-caste gender practices. But Dalits are not simply becoming like upper castes; they are simultaneously asserting a distinct, politicised Dalit identity, formed in direct opposition to the dominant castes. They are developing their own ‘politics of culture’. Key to both, the author argues, is the ‘respectability’ of women. This has significant effects on gender equality in the Dalit community.





      1. Introduction




      2. Contextualising Dalit ‘Shame’






      3. Dalit Women and the Politics of Culture






      4. Dalit Women’s Everyday Life, Work, Kinship and Shame






      5. Honour and Shame in the Madiga palli: Leela’s Elopement, Possession and Marriage






      6. Women’s Education, Marriage, Honour and the New Dalit Housewife






      7. Alcohol, Violence and Women’s ‘Suffering’: ‘Adulterer, tramp or thief, a husband is a husband’






      8. Kalyani: ‘Development’, ‘Civilisation’ and ‘Women’s Empowerment’






      9. ‘Culture’, ‘Civilisation’ and Citizenship


    Biography

    Clarinda Still is a Postdoctoral Researcher (Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme) at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford. She has written several papers in distinguished journals. She is also the Editor of Dalits in Neoliberal India: Mobility or Marginalisation? London, New Delhi::Routledge, 2014.