Kings and untouchables : a study of the caste system in western India

Over a period of twenty years the Dalit movement has had significant repercussions on Indian social behavior, particularly within the more educated and cosmopolitan groups in urban areas. Dalit has now replaced the uncomfortable label, Untouchable, and their cause has been acknowledged politically as a national issue. But has the political movement of the Dalits actually succeeded in eradicating untouchability? Is Dalit now an anthropological category synonymous with untouchable?

In this book Rosa Maria Perez presents fieldwork done on the Vankar, a caste of Untouchable weavers in Gujarat. The ethnographic data, collected over two visits spanning over four years, has led her to a re-evaluation of the traditional approach that focused on the singularity and also the rigidity of caste in Indian society. Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus has had a significant impact on anthropological theory. Rosa Perez confronts this Western perception of untouchability with the notion of reversibility, and a fresh translation of social norms.