Caste: A Global Story
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:15 pm
- Venue
- SOAS, University of London
- Room
- Wolfson Lecture Theatre (Paul Webley Wing)
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
A unique exploration of caste oppression and caste resistance around the world, from one of India’s leading public intellectuals.
Caste, and caste-based discrimination, are not just Indian issues. They are experienced throughout the world, from Britain to Bahrain, Canada to South Africa. This is a global phenomenon, demanding global solutions.
Leading scholar Suraj Milind Yengde shines a light on the Dalit experience internationally, from indentured labourers in the 19th century Caribbean to present-day migrant workers in the Middle East. Combining history, ethnography and archival research, he offers a compelling, comparative approach to caste and race from ancient times to today. What have been the impacts of colonialism, religion and nationalism on caste-based hierarchies worldwide? What can we learn from caste-related movements in India and internationally? Why hasn’t the South Asian diaspora embraced the anti-caste struggles of the homeland? And what are the limits of Dalit–Black solidarity?
Exploring the global footprint of the anti-caste struggle—from its links with Black Lives Matter to the work of international Ambedkarite organisations—this is a powerful analysis of world politics from the perspective of one of the most oppressed communities on Earth. Asking probing questions about the nature of inequality, Yengde issues an energetic call for a cosmopolitan Dalit universalism, as a vital part of today’s fight for social justice and equality.
About the speakers
Suraj Milind Yengde is Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies and a Ford Foundation Presidential Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His second doctorate at the University of Oxford explored the intellectual histories of caste and race from the Middle Ages to the present. He is the bestselling author of Caste Matters.
Jens Lerche is Emeritus Professor in Agrarian and Labour Studies at the Department of Development Studies at SOAS University of London.
Ajantha Subramanian is a historical anthropologist whose work addresses the historicity and political economy of caste. She is particularly interested in the incorporation of caste into projects of governance and capitalist transformation, and how these projects in turn have shaped the social relations of caste.
Amilcar Shabazz is a professor of history and Africana Studies in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies since 2007, Shabazz served as the department’s seventh chair from 2007 to 2012.
