Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._1

CASE STUDIES

the ways in which cities develop as interrelated territories involving distinctive ways of life and opportunities. He described such territories as ‘‘natural areas’’ and stressed that they emerged based on social and economic competition.

Many of the best-known and most influential sociological case studies done in the United States were conducted in the 1920s and 1930s by students and faculty members at the University of Chicago who were interested in the distinctive ways of life in diverse natural areas (e.g., Anderson 1923; Cressey 1932; Shaw 1930; Thomas 1923;

Wirth 1928; and Zorbaugh 1929). While it was done later, H. M. Hughes’s (1961) study of Janet Clark’s life is also an example of the Chicago approach to case studies and urban life. Perhaps the best-known and most influential case study done in the early Chicago school tradition is William Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner Society, a partici- pant-observer study of a poor Italian-American community. The significance of the study is related to Whyte’s use of his observations to identify and explicate some basic sociological issues involving social relations and social control in small groups.

Park’s approach to case studies has been modified and refined over the years, particularly by Everett C. Hughes (1970), who developed a comparative approach to work groups and settings. The approach uses case studies to identify and analyze comparatively generalized aspects of work groups and settings, such as work groups’ definitions of ‘‘dirty work’’ and their interest in controlling the conditions of their work. Becker’s (1963) use of multiple case studies in articulating the labeling perspective is a notable example of how the comparative strategy advocated by E. C. Hughes may be applied to develop sociological theory.

Another major contributor to the Chicago school of sociology is Erving Goffman (1959), who used case studies to develop a dramaturgical perspective on social interaction. The perspective treats mundane interactions as quasi-theatrical performances involving scripts, stages, and characters.

Although less influential than the Chicago school, a second source for case studies in American sociology was structural-functionalist theorists who analyzed communities and organizations as stability-seeking social systems. Structural-functional case studies were influenced by anthropological studies of nonindustrial communities and the more

abstract theories of Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton. These studies analyze how social systems are maintained and adapt to changing environmental circumstances. For example, structural functionalists have used case studies to analyze the consequences of organizational activities and relationships for maintaining organizational systems (Blau 1955; Gouldner 1954; Sykes 1958).

An exemplary structural-functionalist case study is Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (1977) analysis of a multinational corporation, which she calls Indsco. The study examines how social relations in corporations are shaped by social structures which produce feelings of uncertainty and marginality among managers and secretaries. Kanter uses her case study to illustrate how gender segregation is produced and maintained in Indsco as secretaries and managers cope with the practical problems emergent from corporate power and opportunity structures. She also makes some practical suggestions for altering these structures in order to better address the needs of managers and secretaries, and to produce more egalitarian relations between corporate members. Many of Kanter’s suggestions have been adopted by diverse American corporations. This is another way in which case studies may influence social policies.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN CASE-

STUDIES RESEARCH

While many qualitative sociologists continue to work within the Chicago school and structuralfunctional traditions, several important developments have occurred in qualitative sociology in the past twenty-five years. For example, many of the case studies of ethnic communities done by early Chicago school sociologists deal with the problems and social organization of European-Ameri- can communities. Many more recent case studies, on the other hand, explore these issues within the context of nonEuropean-American communities. Ruth Horowitz’s (1983) case study of a Hispanic community and Elijah Anderson’s (1990) research in an African-American community are major contributions to this development.

Age-based communities have also emerged as subjects for case studies by sociologists. One focus in this literature involves the distinctive life circumstances and coping strategies of communities of older people. Arlie Hochshild’s (1973) study of

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a group of widowed women as an ‘‘unexpected community’’ is an important example of this focus, as is Jennie Keith’s (1977) analysis of the social construction of community in a retirement facility in France. Another approach to case-study research is Jaber Gubrium’s (1993) analysis of the life stories told to him by a group of elderly nursing home residents. Equally significant are recent case studies of communities of young people, particularly of communities organized around shared interests in popular culture. A useful example is Sarah Thornton’s (1996) case study of dance clubs and raves in London. Thornton’s analysis extends traditional analysis of communities as subcultures by showing how this community was created and is maintained through the actions of (not so youthful) members of the London mass media.

A related change has been case studies of experiential communities. That is, social groups that share common social experiences, but not a common territory. For example, Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson (1992) analyze AfricanAmerican males as a racial and gender community that is organized around shared practical problems and strategies for managing them. Using a semiotic perspective, Dick Hedbridge (1979) also analyzes an experiential community in using several case studies to show how young people form a subculture that is organized around the expression of cultural styles, which symbolically resist dominant forces in society. Another focus in this literature is on the distinctive life experiences of members of gay and lesbian communities. A notable example is Carol A. B. Warren’s (1974) case study of a gay community in which she raises some important questions about the labeling perspective. Thus, both Warren’s and Hedbridge’s research show how case studies contribute to theoretical development in sociology.

A different, but complementary, use of the case-study research strategy is auto-ethnography. These are case studies conducted within and about one’s own group. The researcher acts as both a sociologist seeking information about a community, and as a subject of the research. A groundbreaking auto-ethnography is David Hayano’s (1982) study of professional card players. This case study provides readers with distinctive access to, and insights into, the experiences of professional card players. Two other notable auto-ethnographies are Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh’s (1977) case study

of her own and others’ exit from the social role of

Roman Catholic nun, and Thomas Schmid’s and Richard S. Jones’s (1991) analysis of Jones’s and other inmates’ adaptations to prison life.

Auto-ethnographers’ concern for taking account of their own and others’ experiences is extended in another trend in sociological casestudies research. This trend focuses on emotions as a basic and important aspect of social life.

Many case studies done by sociologists of emotions deal with other persons’ emotional experiences (Hochschild 1983; Katz 1988). Other sociologists, however, adopt a more auto-ethnographic strategy by treating their own lives and feelings as topics for sociological analysis. The sociologist’s feelings become the case or part of the case under study. An important example of the latter approach to case studies is David Karp’s (1996) discussion of his own experiences with depression, and his linking of them to the emotional experiences reported by other members of this community of sufferers.

In addition to the changes discussed above, three other changes in case-studies research warrant special notice. They are the emergence of radical case studies, a focus on reality construction, and concern for the politics and poetics of writing case studies.

RADICAL CASE STUDIES

While early sociological case studies were sometimes associated with reformist movements, they were seldom intended to advance politically radical causes or to build radical social theory. This orientation may be contrasted with that of radical journalists of the same era (such as Upton Sinclair) who used case studies to highlight social problems and raise questions about the legitimacy of capitalism. Radical sociologists have begun to use case studies to develop their sociological goals. One source for radical case studies is Marxist sociologists concerned with the ways in which workermanagement relations are organized in work settings, how social classes are perpetuated, and how capitalism is justified.

Marxist sociologists use their case studies to challenge more conservative case studies that, from the radicals’ standpoint, do not take adequate account of the ways in which persons’ everyday

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lives are shaped by political and economic structures. They are also used to analyze historical changes in capitalism and the consequences of the changes for workers. For Marxist theorists, a major change has been the rise of a new of society— monopoly capitalism—dominated by multinational corporations. These theorists use case studies of work settings to illustrate and analyze the effects of monopoly capitalism on workers (Burawoy 1970).

Although it is not as well developed in sociology as in anthropology, another focus of radical case studies involves the social and personal consequences of the international division of labor. The studies are concerned with the ways in which multinational corporations internationalize the production process by exporting aspects of production to Third World countries. Case studies of this trend show the profound impact of global economic changes for gender and family roles in

Third World countries (Ong 1987). Finally, radical sociologists have used the case-study method to analyze the ways in which capitalist institutions and relationships are justified and perpetuated by noneconomic institutions such as schools

(Willis 1977).

A second source for radical case studies is feminist sociology. While it is diverse and includes members who hold many different political philosophies, all forms of feminist sociology are sensitive to the politics of human relationships. A major theme in feminist case studies involves the ways in which women’s contributions to social relationships and institutions go unseen and unacknowledged. Feminist sociologists use case studies to call attention to women’s contributions to society and analyze the political implications of their invisibility. A related concern involves analyzing relationships and activities that are typically treated as apolitical and private matters as matters of public concern. One way in which feminist sociologists do so is by treating aspects of their own lives as politically significant and making them matters for sociological analysis (McCall 1993).

The case-study approach is central to the feminist sociology of Dorothy E. Smith (1987). Smith treats case studies as points of entry for studying general social processes that shape persons’ experiences and lives. Her approach to case studies emphasizes how the seemingly insignificant activities of everyday life are related by general social

processes (such as patriarchy and market relationships) and how they help to perpetuate the processes. Smith describes, for example, how the commonplace activity of dining in a restaurant is organized within, and perpetuates, capitalist commodity relations. Smith’s analysis might also be seen as an example of the general analytic strategy, which Michael Burawoy (1998) calls the ‘‘extended case method.’’ This approach to case studies involves four major steps:

•Researcher observations of, and immersion in, a social setting,

•Analysis of the researcher’s observations as aspects of general social processes that shape life in diverse contemporary social settings,

•Historicizing the observations and social processes by showing how they are embedded in historical forces that guide and structure the evolution of capitalist society, and

•Linking the observations and analyses to formal sociological theories that explain the researcher’s initial observations and their larger social and historical contexts.

This is one way in which case studies may be used as a springboard for developing systematic, general, and formal sociological analyses.

CASE STUDIES OF REALITY

CONSTRUCTION

Basic to the case-study method and idiographic interpretation is a concern for human values and culture. Beginning in the 1960s, one focus of this concern has been with the ways in which social realities are produced in social interactions. The new focus is generally based on the social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and ethnomethodology. While different in some ways, both are concerned with the folk methods that people use to construct meanings (Silverman 1975). For example, Harold Garfinkel (1967), the founder of ethnomethodology, used a case study of a patient seeking a sex-change operation to analyze how we orient to ourselves and others as men and women.

Case studies of reality construction emphasize how social realities are created, sustained, and

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changed through language use. The emphasis has given rise to new orientations to traditional areas of sociological research, such as science. Until recently, sociologists of science have treated scientific work as a simple, noninterpretive process centered in scientists’ adherence to the rules of the scientific method, which emphasizes how ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘truth’’ emerge from observations of the ‘‘real’’ world. Viewed this way, scientific facts are not matters of interpretation or social constructions. This view of science has been challenged by case studies of scientific work that focus on the ways in which scientific facts are socially produced based on scientists’ interpretations of their experiments (Latour and Woolgar 1979).

A major branch of ethnomethodology is conversation analysis, which focuses on the turn-by- turn organization of social interactions (Sacks,

Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). For conversation analysts, social reality is collaboratively constructed within turn-taking sequences, which may be organized around such linguistic practices as questions and answers or charges and rebuttals. A major contribution of conversation-analytic studies has been to show how IQ and other test results are shaped by the ways in which test-givers and test-takers interact (Marlaire and Maynard 1990).

Also, sociologists influenced by conversation analysis theory have considered how power and dominance are interactionally organized and accomplished.

Some qualitative sociologists have extended and reformulated ethnomethodological case studies by analyzing the relationships between the interpretive methods used by interactants in concrete situations and the distinctive meanings they produce in their interactions. This approach to case studies focuses on the practical and political uses of meanings in social institutions. These ethnographers analyze meanings as rhetorics which interactants use to persuade others and to assign identities to themselves and others. An important contribution to this approach to case-study research is Donileen Loseke’s (1992) study of decision making and social relations in a shelter for battered women. Loseke details the practical contexts within which shelter workers, shelter residents, and applicants to the shelters encounter each other and manage their social relationships. It is in these encounters, Loseke states, that shelter

workers and residents give concrete meaning to the abstract cultural category of battered women.

Two other important, and related, trends in case studies of reality construction involve comparative analysis of two or more cases, and the use of new theoretical perspectives in analyzing casestudy data. One example is Jaber Gubrium’s (1992) comparative analysis of two different family therapy sites. Gubrium uses observational data from the sites to show how different therapy approaches are organized to ‘‘detect’’ and remedy different kinds of family and personal problems. He also shows how aspects of Weberian theory may be used in analyzing the sociological significance of family therapy. Gale Miller and David Silverman (1995) have also contributed to this development by comparatively analyzing social interactions in two different counseling centers located in the United States and England. This study is based on the ethnography of institutional discourse perspective (Miller 1994), which is a strategy for developing general theoretical statements from case-study research.

THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF WRITING

CASE STUDIES

While some qualitative sociologists focus on the folk methods of description and interpretation used by others in creating realities, other sociologists are reconsidering the reality constructing methods used by sociologists in writing case studies. Their interest centers in the question, How do we do our work? The question raises issues about the relationships between qualitative researchers and the people they study. For example, is it enough that case studies inform the public and sociologists about aspects of contemporary society, or should they also help the persons and communities studied? A related issue involves editorial control over the writing of case studies. That is, should the subjects of case studies have a voice in how they are described and analyzed?

Such questions have given rise to many answers, but most of them involve analyzing case studies as narratives or stories that sociologists tell about themselves and others. For example, John van Maanen (1988) divides ethnographic writing into several types of ‘‘tales’’ involving different

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orientations to the persons described, readers, and authorship. Other analyses focus on the various rhetorical devices used by ethnographers to write their case studies (Bruyn 1966). Such rhetorical devices include metaphor, irony, paradox, synecdoche, and metonymy, which ethnographers use both to describe others and to cast their descriptions as objective and authoritative.

Anderson, Nels 1923 The Hobo. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Becker, Howard S. 1963 Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.

Blau, Peter M. 1955 The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bruyn, Severyn T. 1966 The Human Perspective in Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Qualitative sociologists’ interest in writing case studies may be part of a larger interdisciplinary movement involving social scientists and humanists. The movement is concerned with analyzing the rhetorics of social scientific inquiry (Nelson et al. 1987) as well as how to write better narratives.

The latter issue is basic to efforts by British sociologists to develop new forms of writing that better reflect the ways in which their case studies are socially constructed (Woolgar 1988) and other sociologists’ interest in developing alternatives to the logico-scientific writing style that better express their theoretical perspectives, political philosophies, and experiences (DeVault 1990; Richardson 1990). A related change in this area is some sociologists’ interest in using performance art to represent their research data. For example, Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner (1992) have written a play about the experiences and dilemmas faced by women and their male partners in deciding whether to abort the woman’s pregnancy. Ellis and Bochner state that this presentational form allows for a wider range of communication devices than does the usual textual approach to reporting casestudy findings.

In sum, the case-study method is a dynamic approach to studying social life, which sociologists modify and use to achieve diverse political and theoretical goals. While the popularity of the casestudy method waxes and wanes over time, it is likely to always be a major research strategy of humanistically oriented sociologists.

(SEE ALSO: Ethnomethodology; Field Research Methods; Life

Histories; Qualitative Methods)

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———1998 ‘‘Critical Sociology: A Dialogue Between Two Sciences.’’ Contemporary Journal of Sociology

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Cressey, Paul 1932 The Taxi-Dance Hall. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

DeVault, Marjorie L. 1990 ‘‘Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint.’’ Social Problems 37:96–116.

Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs 1997 Out of the Cloister: A Study of Organizational Dilemmas. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

Ellis, Carolyn and Arthur P. Bochner 1992 ‘‘Investigating Subjectivity.’’ In Carolyn Ellis and Michael G. Flaherty, eds., Telling and Performing Personal Stories. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Garfinkel, Harold 1967 Studies in Ethnomethodology.

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Goffman, Erving 1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.

Gouldner, Alvin 1954 Patterns of Industrial Democracy. New York: Free Press.

Gubrium, Jaber F. 1992 Out of Control: Family Therapy and Domestic Disorder. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

——— 1993 Speaking of Life: Horizons of Meaning for Nursing Home Residents. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.

Hayano, David M. 1982 Poker Faces: The Life and Work of Professional Card Players. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hedbridge, Dick 1979 Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: London.

Hochschild, Arlie Russell 1973 The Unexpected Community. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

——— 1983 The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Horowitz, Ruth 1983 Honor and the American Dream: Culture and Identity in a Chicano Community. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

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Hughes, Everett C. 1970 ‘‘The Humble and the Proud.’’

The Sociological Quarterly 11:147–156.

Hughes, Helen MacGill 1961 The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Drug Addict. Greenwich, Conn.: A Fawcett Premier Book.

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss 1977 Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.

Katz, Jack 1988 Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil. New York: Basic Books.

Keith, Jennie 1973 Old People, New Lives: Community Creation in a Retirement Residence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Latour, Bruno and Steven Woolgar 1979 Laboratory Life. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Liebow, Elliot 1967 Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men. Boston: Little, Brown.

Loseke, Donileen R. 1992 The Battered Woman and Shelters: The Social Construction of Wife Abuse. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press.

Majors, Richard, and Janet Mancini Billson 1992 Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America. New York: Touchstone Books.

Marlaire, Courtney L., and Douglas W. Maynard 1990 ‘‘Standardized Testing as an Interactional Phenomenon.’’ Sociology of Education 63:83–101.

McCall, Michal A. 1993 ‘‘Social Constructionism and Critical Feminist Theory and Research.’’ In Gale Miller and James A. Holstein, eds., Constructionist Controversies: Issues in SocialProblems Theory. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.

Miller, Gale 1994 ‘‘Toward Ethnographies of Institutional Discourse: Proposal and Suggestions.’’ Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 23:280–306.

———, and David Silverman 1995 ‘‘Troubles Talk and Counseling Discourse: A Comparative Study.’’ Sociological Quarterly 36:725–747.

Nelson, John S., Allan Megill, and Donald N. McCloskey (eds.) 1987 The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ong, Aihwa 1987 Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press.

Ragin, Charles C. and Howard S. Becker (eds.) 1992

What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Richardson, Laurel 1990 ‘‘Narrative and Sociology.’’

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 19:116–135.

Sacks, Harvey, Emmanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson 1974 ‘‘A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation.’’ Language 50:696–735.

Schmid, Thomas, and Richard S. Jones 1991 ‘‘Suspended Identity Dialectic: Identity Transformation in a Maximum Security Prison.’’ Symbolic Interaction 14:415–432.

Shaw, Clifford 1930 The Jack-Roller. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

Silverman, David 1975 ‘‘Accounts of Organizations: Organizational ‘Structures’ and the Accounting Process.’’ In John B. McKinlay, ed., Processing People: Cases in Organizational Behavior. London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Smith, Dorothy E. 1987 The Everyday World as Problematic. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Sykes, Gresham M. 1958 The Society of Captives. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Thomas, W. I. 1923 The Unadjusted Girl. Boston: Lit-

tle, Brown.

Thornton, Sarah 1996 Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover, N.H. and London: Wesleyan University Press.

Van Maanen, John 1988 Tales of the Field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Warren, Carol A. B. 1974 Identity and Community in the Gay World. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Whyte, William Foote 1943 Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Willis, Paul 1977 Learning to Labour. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wirth, Louis 1928 The Ghetto. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

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Tavistock.

Zorbaugh, Harvey 1929 The Gold Coast and the Slum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

GALE MILLER

RICHARD S. JONES

CASTE AND INHERITED STATUS

The study of social inequalities is one of the most important areas of sociology as inequalities in property, power, and prestige have long-term consequences on access to the basic necessities of life

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such as good health, education, and a well-paying job. Unequal resources between groups also influence their interaction with all the basic institutions of society: the economy, the political system, and religion, among others. An understanding of how inequalities arise, their forms and consequences, and the processes that tend to sustain them is essential for the formulation of policies that will improve the well-being of all in society.

All societies in the world are socially stratified (i.e. wealth, power, and honor are unequally distributed among different groups). However, they vary in the ways in which inequality is structured.

One of the most frequently used bases for categorizing different forms of stratification systems is the way status is acquired. In some societies, individuals acquire status on the basis of their achievements or merit. In others, status is accorded on the basis of ascribed, not achieved characteristics. One is born into them or inherits them, regardless of individual abilities or skills. A person’s position is unalterable during his or her lifetime. The most easily understood example is that of the prince who inherits the status of king because he is the son of a king.

Sociologists who study stratification use the idea of ascribed and achieved status to contrast caste systems with class systems. In class systems one’s opportunities in life, at least in theory, are determined by one’s actions, allowing a degree of individual mobility that is not possible in caste systems. In caste systems a person’s social position is determined by birth, and social intercourse outside one’s caste is prohibited.

The term ‘‘caste’’ itself is often used to denote large-scale kinship groups that are hierarchically organized within a rigid system of stratification. Caste systems are to be found among the Hindus in India and among societies where groups are ranked and closed as in South Africa during the apartheid period. Toward the end of this article, examples of caste systems will be given from other non-Hindu societies to illustrate how rigid, ranked systems of inequality, where one’s position is fixed for life, are found in other areas that do not share

India’s religious belief system.

Early Hindu literary classics describe a society divided into four varnas: Brahman (poet-priest),

Kshatriya (warrior-chief), Vaishya (traders), and Shudras (menials, servants). The varnas formed ranked categories characterized by differential access to spiritual and material privileges. It excluded the Untouchables, who were despised because they engaged in occupations that were considered unclean and polluting.

The varna model of social ranking persisted throughout the Hindu subcontinent for over a millennia. The basis of caste ranking was the sacred concept of purity and pollution with Brahmans, because they were engaged in priestly duties considered ritually pure, while those who engaged in manual labor and with ritually polluting objects were regarded as impure. Usually those who had high ritual status also had economic and political power. Beliefs about pollution generally regulated all relations between castes. Members were not allowed to marry outside their caste; there were strict rules about the kind of food and drink one could accept and from what castes; and there were restrictions on approaching and visiting members of another caste. Violations of these rules entailed purifactory rites and sometimes expulsion from the caste (Ghurye 1969).

The varna scheme refers only to broad categories of society, for in reality the small endogamous group or subcaste (jati) forms the unit of social organization. In each linguistic area there are about two thousand such subcastes. The status of the subcaste, its cultural traditions, and its numerical strength vary from one region to another, often from village to village.

Field studies of local caste structures revealed that the caste system was more dynamic than the earlier works by social scientists had indicated. For example, at the local level, the position of the middle castes, between the Brahmans and the Untouchables, is often not very clear. This is because castes were often able to change their ritual position after they had acquired economic and political power. A low caste would adopt the Brahminic way of life, such as vegetarianism and teetotalism, and in several generations attain a higher position in the hierarchy. Upward mobility occurred for an entire caste, not for an individual or the family. This process of upward mobility, known as Sanskritization (Srinivas 1962), did not however, affect the movement of castes at the

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extremes. Brahmans in most parts of the country were found at the top, and Untouchables everywhere occupied a degrading status because of their economic dependency and low ritual status.

The operation of this hierarchical society was justified with reference to traditional Hindu religious beliefs about samsara (reincarnation) and karma (quality of actions). A person’s position in this life was determined by his or her actions in previous lives. Persons who were born in a Brahman family must have performed good deeds in their earlier lives. Being born a Shudra or an Untouchable was punishment for the sinful acts committed in previous lives.

Some scholars (Leach 1960; Dumont 1970) saw the caste system as a cooperative, inclusive arrangement where each caste formed an integral part of the local socioeconomic system and had its special privileges. In a jajmani system, as this arrangement between castes was known, a village was controlled by a dominant caste, which used its wealth, numerical majority, and high status to dominate the other castes in the village. Most other castes provided services to this caste. Some worked on the land as laborers and tenants. Others provided goods and services to the landowning households and to other castes. A village would thus have a potter, blacksmith, carpenter, tailor, shoemaker, barber, sweeper, and a washerman, with each caste specializing in different occupations. These were hereditary occupations. In return for their services castes would be paid in kind, usually farm produce. These patron-client relationships continued for generations, and it was the religious duty of the jajman (patron) to take care of others.

Although the system did provide security for all, it was essentially exploitative and oppressive (Berreman 1981; Beidelman 1959; Freeman 1986), particularly for the Untouchables, who were confined to menial, despised jobs, working as sweepers, gutter and latrine cleaners, scavengers, watchmen, farm laborers, and curers of hides. They were denied access to Hindu temples; were not allowed to read religious Sanskrit books and remained illiterate; could not use village wells and tanks; were forced to live in settlements outside the village; and were forbidden to enter the residential areas of the upper castes.

CHANGES IN THE CASTE SYSTEM

British rule profoundly affected the Indian social order. The ideas of Western culture; the opening of English educational institutions; the legal system, which introduced the principle of equality before the law; and the new economic activities and the kind of employment they generated all brought new opportunities for greater advancement. Although these new developments resulted in greater mobility and opened doors for even the low castes, those castes that benefited most were the ones already in advantageous positions. Thus, Brahmans with a tradition of literacy were the first to avail themselves of English education and occupy administrative positions in the colonial bureaucracy.

The spread of communications enabled local subcastes to link together and form caste associations. These organizations, although initially concerned with raising the caste status in terms of

Brahmanical values, later sought educational, economic, and social benefits from the British (Rudolph and Rudolph 1960). When the colonial authorities widened political participation by allowing elections in some provinces, castes organized to make claims for political representation. In some regions, such as the South, the non-Brahman castes were successful in restricting entry of Brahmans in educational institutions and administrative services.

To assuage the fears of communities about upper-caste Hindu rule in independent India and also to weaken the nationalist movement, the British granted special political representation to some groups such as the Untouchables. They had become politically mobilized under the leadership of

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and had learned, like other castes and communities, the use of political means to secure status and power (Zelliot 1970).

After the country became independent from British rule in 1947, the Indian leaders hoped that legislative and legal measures would reorder an entrenched social structure. A new Constitution was adopted, which abolished untouchability and prohibited discrimination in public places. In addition, special places were reserved for Untouchables in higher educational institutions, government services, and in the lower houses of the central and state legislatures.

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What progress has the country made toward improving the lives of the Untouchables, who now form 16.48 percent (according to the 1991 Indian Census) of the population? Has the traditional caste system disintegrated?

The movement from a traditional to a modern economy—increase in educational facilities; expansion of white-collar jobs, especially in the state sector; expansion of the transportation and communication networks; increase in agricultural production (known as the Green Revolution)—has had a significant impact on the institution of caste.

However, political factors have been equally if not more important in producing changes in the caste system. One is the democratic electoral system. The other is the state’s impact on intercaste relations through its policy of preferences for selected disadvantaged castes.

The close association between caste and traditional occupation is breaking down because of the expansion of modern education and the urbanindustrial sector. In India, an urban middle class has formed whose members are drawn from various caste groups. This has reduced the structural and cultural differences between castes, as divisions based on income, education, and occupation become more important than caste cleavages for social and economic purposes. However, the reduction is most prominent among the upper socioeconomic strata—the urban, Western-educat- ed, professional, and higher-income groups, whose members share a common lifestyle (Beteille 1969).

For most Indians, especially those who live in rural areas (73 percent of the Indian population is still rural), caste factors are an integral part of their daily lives. In many parts of the country Dalits (the term means ‘‘oppressed’’ and is now preferred by the members of the Untouchable community rather than the government-assigned label ‘‘Scheduled Castes’’) are not allowed inside temples and cannot use village water wells. Marriages are generally arranged between persons of the same caste.

With the support of government scholarships and reservation benefits, a small proportion of Dalits has managed to gain entry into the middle class—as school teachers, clerks, bank tellers, typists, and government officials. Reservation of seats in the legislature has made the political arena

somewhat more accessible, although most politicians belonging to the Dalit community have little say in party matters and government policymaking. The majority of Dalits remain landless agricultural laborers, powerless, desperately poor, and illiterate.

Modern economic forces are changing the rural landscape. The increase in cash-crop production, which has made grain payments in exchange for services unprofitable; the introduction of mechanized farming which has displaced manual labor; the preference for manufactured goods to handmade ones; and the migration to cities and to prosperous agricultural areas for work and better wages have all weakened the traditional patronclient ties and the security it provided. The Dalits and other low castes have been particularly affected as the other sectors of the economy have not grown fast enough to absorb them.

The rural social structure has been transformed in yet another way. The dominant castes are no longer from the higher castes but belong to the middle and lower peasant castes—the profit maximizing ‘‘bullock capitalists’’ (Rudolph and Rudolph 1987) who were the chief beneficiaries of land reform and state subsidies to the agricultural sector (Blair 1980; Brass 1985). They have displaced the high-caste absentee landlords who have moved to cities and taken up modern occupations.

Modern political institutions have also brought about changes in the traditional leadership and power structure of local communities. Relations between castes are now governed by rules of competitive politics, and leaders are selected for their political skills and not because they are members of a particular caste. The role of caste varies at different levels of political action. At the village and district levels caste loyalties are effectively used for political mobilization. But at the state and national levels, caste factors become less important for political parties because one caste rarely commands a majority at these levels. The rise of a

Dalit political party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, is evidence that Dalits are finally gaining some political power. They are particularly strong in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where they received 20.61 percent of the votes in the 1996 general elections. However, at the national level they have fared poorly, capturing only 11 seats (and 3.64 percent of the votes) in the 1996 general elections.

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CASTE AND INHERITED STATUS

In the 1990s there were numerous instances of confrontations between the middle peasant castes and Dalits in rural areas. Violence and repression against Dalits has increased as they have begun to assert themselves. With the support of Communist and Dalit movements, they are demanding better wages, the right to till govern- ment-granted land, and the use of village wells.

In urban areas, caste conflict has mainly centered around the issue of ‘‘reservation.’’ The other backward castes (who belong mainly to the Shudra caste and form about 50 percent of the country’s population) have demanded from the government benefits similar to those available to Dalits in government service and educational institutions. Under electoral pressures the state governments have extended these reservation benefits to the other backward castes, leading to discontent among the upper castes.

Extension of preferential treatment from Dalits to the more numerous and in some states somewhat better-off backward castes has not only created great resentment among the upper castes but also has reduced public support for the policy of special benefits for the Dalits. In cities they have often been victims during anti-reservation agitations. That this is happening at the very time when the preferential programs have gradually succeeded in improving the educational and economic conditions for Dalits is not accidental (Sheth 1987).

As education and the meaning of the vote and the ideas of equality and justice spread, the rural and urban areas will witness severe intercaste con-

flicts. What is significant, however, is that these conflicts are not over caste beliefs and values, but like conflicts elsewhere between ethnic groups, have to do with control over political and economic resources.

CASTE IN OTHER SOCIETIES

Do castes exist outside India? Is it a unique social phenomenon distinct from other systems of social stratification? Opinion among scholars is divided over this issue. Castelike systems have been observed in the South Asian subcontinent and beyond (in Japan, Africa, Iran, and Polynesia). Caste has also been used to describe the systems of racial stratification in South Africa and the southern

United States.

Whether the term ‘‘caste’’ is applicable to societies outside the South Asian region depends on how the term is defined. Those who focus on its religious foundations argue that caste is a particular species of structural organization found only in the Indian world. Louis Dumont (1970), for example, contends that caste systems are noncomparable to systems of racial stratification because of the differences in ideology—one based on the ideology of hierarchy, the other on an equalitarian ideology.

Cultural differences notwithstanding, caste as a ranked system exists in many societies. In fact, wherever ethnic groups stand in a hierarchical or ranked relationship to each other they resemble castes (Weber 1958; Horowitz 1985; Berreman

1981). As in caste systems, the identity of an ethnic group is regarded as being a consequence of birth or ancestry and hence immutable; mobility opportunities are restricted; and members of the subordinate group retain their low social position in all sectors of society—political, economic, and social. Social interactions between groups remain limited and are suffused with deference. Given these similarities in their social structures and social processes, caste stratification is congruent with race stratification and ranked ethnic systems. Below are some examples of castelike systems in countries outside South Asia.

In Japan, during the Tokugawa period (from the early 1600s to the middle 1800s), the Shogun rulers established a very rigid, hierarchical system that was maintained by force of law and other means. At the top were the shogunate warriorbureaucrats, their samurai military elite, and the higher aristocracy. This was followed by peasants, then artisans, and then merchants. At the bottom and separated from the rest of the populace there was a group of outcasts called eta (meaning heavily polluted) or hinin (meaning nonhuman) who were treated much like the Indian Untouchables described above. Eta were legally barred from marrying outside their group or from living outside their designated hamlets. These hamlets were called buraku, and their residents known as Burakumins.

Burakumins are indistinguishable in appearance from other Japanese. They faced discrimination because they inherited their status from people whose jobs were considered polluting and undesirable like butchering animals, tanning skins,

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