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- Convenor:
-
Neha Hui
(University of Reading)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Palmer 1.06
- Sessions:
- Thursday 29 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks theoretical & empirical research looking at links between the caste system, market economy and climate change. We examine if caste based rigidities are reinforced in the current market & climate regime, & how caste based inequalities affect climate adaptability and vulnerabilities.
Long Abstract:
Caste, an archaic institution, continues to be relevant in determining life opportunities in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora. The caste system is built on structures of advantage and discrimination which have important bearing on the modern economy (Mosse, 2018). In this panel we invite theoretical and empirical papers in an under-researched area that looks at the overlap of the caste system, its manifestations in the market economy and how environmental factors perpetuate and are reinforced by inequalities associated with caste.
The link between the environment and the caste system is deep rooted and exist both in ideological as well as practical levels. Caste system relates to notions of ritual pollution and purity, and the maintenance of the system requires separation of higher castes from ‘dirt’. This means that occupations that are hazardous and associated with wastes and emulsions have historically been lower caste’s specialisation. Does market expansion and climate change policies reinforce such caste based occupational rigidities?
Equally, historical inequality in land ownership and access to water means that outcomes associated with climate change disproportionately affect people of lower caste. Such differences in power relations in access to resources imply differences in vulnerability and adaptability to climate change. This panel also invites papers on caste-based climate adaptability and the intersection with other identities like gender and ethnicity.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 29 June, 2023, -Neha Yadav (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)
Paper short abstract:
An empirically grounded analysis which highlights the differential coping strategies adopted by the smallholders in response to climate change to increase resilience to the food systems. It makes important contributions to scholarships on critical studies on intersectionality and vulnerability.
Paper long abstract:
Mountain communities are highly susceptible to climate change because of their dependency on climate-sensitive sectors and low livelihood diversification. Despite much research on climate change perception, adaptation, and policy implications, there is currently less evidence of the value offered by integrative approaches to capture the multidimensionality of underlying factors which affects food security and livelihood in the mountain region. The study was conducted in ten villages in two blocks of Tehri Garhwal district, Uttarakhand. Primary data was collected at the household and community level through 189 household surveys and six gender-disaggregated focus group discussions to understand the changes in food patterns and diet diversity. In-depth interviews were conducted with representatives of several socio-economic strata, and caste groups. Male and female responders make up 46 and 54 percent of the total. The study builds on vulnerability and socio-ecological approaches to examine the major stress factors for the local food systems and traces their interaction with climate variability, contextual vulnerability and socio-ecological changes to analyze the resilience and adaptive capacity of small/marginal farmers. The findings present an analysis, respondents perceive the risk and uncertainties similarly, though their responses to livelihood diversification differ based on social differentiation and vulnerabilities. The availability of coping mechanisms is impacted by socioeconomic differences in entitlements and resources. Gender, ecosystems and governance were the cross-cutting issues to understand the changes in land and agrarian relations, livelihood practices and, coping strategies. The study ascertains the barriers to adaptation by the smallholders to increase climate resilience in food systems.
Mijo Luke (Centre For Development Studies) Suravee Nayak (Centre for Policy Research)
Paper short abstract:
The paper argues that caste inequalities reinforced through various market interventions and integrations make the Dalits–the victims of climate change in India. It illuminates how marginalised communities in the global south experience and respond to the consequences of climate change .
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the socio-ecological processes in two regions of rural India. It maps the distinct and uneven trajectories of politics of land where differences in power relations and access to resources imply differences in vulnerability to climate change. In other words, It illuminates how people in the global south at the margins of caste relations experience and respond to exacerbated consequences of climate change in the capitalist development process. The paper unfolds these dynamics at the microlevel drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in two ecologically sensitive regions of India’s Eastern and Southern parts. One case focuses on the market interventions in the coal mining region located in Odisha, and the other focuses on the market integration in the ecologically sensitive areas of the Western Ghats of Kerala. The paper argues that the unequal power relations through control of resources are (re)produced in climate change discourses in complex ways. In both cases, landless Dalit communities located in both region's specific historical processes of capitalism are at the margins of climate change. The paper points out that caste-based structural inequalities reinforced through various market interventions and integrations make the marginalised Dalits – the victims of climate change. The paper concludes by calling for addressing the caste inequalities and access to resources shaping the complex realities of climate change through decentralised political interventions at the local level moving beyond mere technocratic approaches to climate change.
Neha Hui (University of Reading) Ashmita Gupta (Asian Development Research Institute)
Paper short abstract:
We look at caste based occupational rigidities and investigate whether the free market can facilitate individuals of stigmatised castes to move from hazardous and 'dirty' occupations to more 'prestigious' occupations.
Paper long abstract:
The caste system in India is a system of stratified hierarchy (Gang et al 2012). It is perpetuated through occupational rigidity where people from lower caste backgrounds get locked in manual unskilled labor (Sen and Yun 2008). As shown by Nandy(2015), 62 percent of young men in India are employed in the same industry as their fathers. Using a district-level panel from National Sample Survey Data (NSSO), we examine the changes in the share of lower-caste individuals in prestigious and hazardous occupations in response to trade liberalization policies in India. We define an occupation as prestigious if they are among the top 10 percent based on education and wages. Contrary to the predictions of the taste-based discrimination model, we find an increase in the share of upper caste individuals in prestigious occupations. Additionally, we find a decline in the share of lower-caste individuals in non-hazardous occupations. We do not find any differences in the caste composition in routine, nonroutine, cognitive, and noncognitive occupations as defined by Autor et al (2013). Negative income shock (Topalova, 2010) and reduced education expenditure among the poor (Edmonds et al, 2010) appear to be the reason for the increase in the share of upper caste individuals in prestigious occupations. The shift in production technology leading to skill-biased technological change seems to be the other channel. Labor laws and differences in enforcement across states are other channels driving our findings.