Siva And Her Sisters Gender, Caste, And Class In Rural South India [Paperback]

This book examines two subordinated groups??untouchables? and women?in a village in Tamilnadu, South India. The lives and work of ?untouchable? women in this village provide a unique analytical focus that clarifies the ways in which three axes of identity?gender, caste, and class?are constructed in South India. Karin Kapadia argues that subordinated groups do not internalize the values of their masters but instead reject them in innumerable subtle ways.Kapadia contends that elites who hold economic power do not dominate the symbolic means of production. Looking at the everyday practices, rituals, and cultural discourses of Tamil low castes, she shows how their cultural values repudiate the norms of Brahminical elites. She also demonstrates that caste and class processes cannot be fully addressed without considering their interrelationship with gender.List of Tables and Illustrations, Preface and Acknowledgments, Key to Kinship Notation, Part One: The Politics of Cultural Contestation, Introduction: The Untouchable Rejection of Hegemony and False Consciousness, Forms of Resistance, The Relevance of a Critical Feminist Theory, The Politics of Culture, The Socioeconomic Background, Classes Within Castes, Kinship Burns! Kinship Discourses and Gender, The Categories of Tamil Kinship, The Mothers Brother, Affinal Kin and Patrilineal Kin, The Concept of the Blood-Bond, Mothers Brother, Astrology, and Divination at Childbirth, The Blood-Bond and Non-Brahmin Matrilateralism, The Exchange of Blood, Implications of the Blood-Bond, What Kinship Connotes, Kinship Burns! Marrying Money: Changing Preference and Practice in Tamil Marriage, Non-Brahmin and Brahmin Marriage Preferences and Their Implications, The Traditional Contexts of Non-Brahmin and Brahmin Marriage, The Advantages to Non-Brahmin Women in Close- Kin Marriage, The Bilaterality of Traditional Non-Brahmin Kinship, Changing Contexts: From Close-Kin Marriage to Non-Kin Marriage, Marriage Strategies Today: Stals