Caste

Abstract

The ethnically distinct societies observed by our travel authors often present internal divisions that more or less correspond to what modern social science discusses under the heading of caste. Although race and caste would seem to foster separate taxonomical and structural regimes, a connection between the two has been pointed out by a number of commentators, notably Max Weber. he defines caste formation as a ritualized rigidification of statuses hitherto upheld only by law or social convention. the process is intensified when ethnicity becomes a factor. Caste, in fact, asserts Weber, can be seen as “the normal form in which ethnic communities usually live side by side in a ‘societalized’ manner” (189). Such communities may be observed in many regions and historical contexts. Unlike other commentators, such as Dumont, Weber looks at castes as autonomous, self-governing groups that safeguard collective identity through shared kinship and cultural values, prohibition of exogamous marriage, and discouragement of contact with outsiders. Dumont defines caste in similar terms—group classifications, commandments, taboos against exogamy—but sees these group-defining strictures as imposed on the various stratified levels by the overall system. Castes are what they are because they fit into a hierarchy. Weber, by contrast, emphasizes the tendency of “‘pariah’ peoples” to found separate communities, to master handicrafts and arts and transmit them generation to generation in “specific occupational traditions,” and, finally, “to cultivate a belief in their ethnic community.”