Paper short abstract:

In Nepal, the future is often imagined as 'casteless', yet caste-based discrimination persists. This paper suggests that psychological essentialism, a bias which is well-known in cognitive science but often overlooked in anthropology, can help explain this situation.

Paper long abstract:

In the hills of East Nepal, an 'ethics of castelessness' has emerged. This ethics is best captured by the statement, frequently repeated in the area, that 'there are only two "castes": men and women'. This statement, regardless of its implications for gender, is invariably made in order to deny the existence of caste and the notion that there are multiple 'kinds' of humans.

Yet in practice, castelessness remains unrealised. While the discrimination which Dalits face in the area has diminished and changed over the past decades, shifting away from the public sphere and becoming confined to a more secretive, domestic sphere, it nonetheless proves remarkably tenacious. A number of macroscopic social projects have attempted to rid the country of caste-based discrimination, including changes in the Nepali law, modernist projects of 'development', anti-casteist activities by Maoist insurgents, etc. Yet despite all of these projects, the perception that Dalits are inherently 'dirty' and 'lowly' remains common.

Castelessness, therefore, remains an incomplete project, a future which is imagined but remarkably hard to bring about. This paper asks why this is the case. Acknowledging the many, well-documented sociological reasons for which discrimination against Dalits persists, the paper suggests that an overlooked part of the explanation may lie in psychological factors. In particular, a bias known as 'psychological essentialism', well studied in cognitive science but less so in anthropology, affords important insights into the issue.