Reading the Materiality of Caste

Focusing on the material things in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, this article examines caste and its connection to sexuality. The brahminic obsession with caste hierarchies is based on controlling women’s bodies and Dalit exclusion. In everyday life, such control over women’s bodies and D...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Issar, Lucky (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press 2021
In: Literature and theology
Year: 2021, Volume: 35, Issue: 4, Pages: 396-413
RelBib Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism
FD Contextual theology
NCF Sexual ethics
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Summary:Focusing on the material things in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, this article examines caste and its connection to sexuality. The brahminic obsession with caste hierarchies is based on controlling women’s bodies and Dalit exclusion. In everyday life, such control over women’s bodies and Dalit subordination is produced via material things. The practice of untouchability becomes real only when certain things/bodies are given touchable/pure status while others are assigned untouchable/abject meanings, which has repercussions for all members of society. Using thing theory and aspects of citizenship theory and brahminic culture, this article studies the ‘materiality’ through which caste is relayed and produced.
ISSN:1477-4623
Contains:Enthalten in: Literature and theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frab027