Cultures of caste and rural development in the social network of a south indian village

Saurabh Arora and Bulat Sanditov ()
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Saurabh Arora: SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research - University of Sussex
Bulat Sanditov: IMT-BS - DEFI - Département Droit, Économie et Finances - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IMT-BS - Institut Mines-Télécom Business School - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], LITEM - Laboratoire en Innovation, Technologies, Economie et Management (EA 7363) - EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management - UEVE - Université d'Évry-Val-d'Essonne - TEM - Télécom Ecole de Management

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Abstract: Cultures of caste in much of rural India have become entangled with institutions of rural development. In community-driven development, emphasis on "local resource persons" and "community spokespersons" has created new opportunities for brokerage and patronage within some villages, which interact with existing forms of authority and community afforded by caste identity and intra-caste headmanship. In this article, we study how these entangled cultures of caste and development translate into social network structures using data on friendship ties from a south Indian village. We find that although caste continues to be important in shaping community structures and leadership in the village's network, its influence varies across different communities. This fluidity of caste's influence on community network structures is argued to be the result of multiple distinct yet partially overlapping cultural-political forces, which include sharedness afforded by caste identity and new forms of difference and inequality effected through rural development.

Keywords: Rural development; Network structure; Culture; Patronage; India; Community development; Homophily; Development brokerage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Sage Open, 2015, 5 (3), pp.1-14. ⟨10.1177/2158244015598813⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01266263

DOI: 10.1177/2158244015598813

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