Un cadre conceptuel pour l'étude des castes en Inde : l'ethnographie Caste and kinship in Kangra réinterprétée dans une optique opérationnelle
Inspired by Michel Verdon’s epistemological and anthropological work, this thesis presents a new conceptual grid to study the caste social organization in India. Jonathan Parry’s ethnography, Caste and Kinship in Kangra, is re-analyzed and re-interpreted with the “operational language”. The different approaches to caste's analysis oscillate between two theoretical poles: idealism on one side, notably represented by Louis Dumont’s structuralism, and substantialism on the other, formerly adopted by the colonial administrators and developed more recently in Dipankar Gupta’s work. Unfortunately, these two holistic options mislead the social organization comparative study, because they ultimately render group “ontologically variable” and, thus, not comparable. Rethinking the premises on which rely the mainstream of the theories on social organization, this conceptual grid confers a binary, dis-continued meaning to the group notion, therefore avoiding ontological variability and allowing comparisons. It also favors the study of the relationships between groups and social networks. The re-reading of Caste and Kinship in Kangra ethnography shows its relevance in the study of the caste organization. Instead, in this thesis, the autonomy of households, with their ritual activities alliance networks, is opposed to the segmented caste view. This new description finally calls for new comparisons.
Caste Caste system Social organization Social networks Groups Comparative approach Sociological theories Social change Epistemology India