The Empire of Disgust Prejudice, Discrimination and Policy in India and the US [Hardcover]

All known societies exclude and stigmatize one or more minority groups. Frequently, these exclusions are underwritten with a rhetoric of disgust. People of certain groups, it is alleged, are filthy, hyper-animal, or not fit to share such facilities as drinking water, food, and public swimming pools with the 'clean' and 'fully human' majority. But exclusions vary in their scope and also in the specific disgust-ideologies underlying them. In this volume, interdisciplinary scholars from India and the United States present a detailed comparative study of the varieties of prejudice and stigma that pervade contemporary social and political life. These include prejudice along the axes of caste, race, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, and economic class. In examining these forms of stigma and their intersections, the authors present theoretically pluralistic and empirically sensitive accounts that both explain group-based stigma and suggest ways forward. These forward-looking remedies, including group resistance to subordination as well as institutional and legal change, point the way towards a public culture that is informed by our diverse histories of discrimination and therefore equipped to eliminate stigma in all of its multifaceted forms.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The Dalit Body: A Reading for the Anthropocene
Dipesh Chakrabarty

2. Stigma or Red Tape? Roadblocks in the Use of Affirmative Action
Ashwini Deshpande

3. Of Big Black Bucks and Golden-Haired Little Girls: How Fear of Miscegenation Informed Brown v. Board of Education and Its Resistance
Justin Driver

4. Four Types of Racism
Emilio Comay del Junco

5. A Social Location Theory of Gender: How Gender Borders Create the Category 'Woman'
Emily Dupree

6. Gender and Anti-Discrimination Laws in India: Modesty, Honour and Defiled Bodies
Vidhu Verma

7. Regulating Retirement and Wrinklesl!