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"Caste, Knowledge, and Power explores the emergence of knowledge as a measure of human in the colonial and casteist contexts in twentieth-century Malabar, India. It undertakes a comparative study of two caste communities in Malabar-Asharis (carpenter caste) and Nampoothiris (Brahmins) for their varied interactions with and intervention in the emerging colonial forms of knowledge production. The author argues that the caste location determined not only the presence or absence in the system of knowledge production, but also the cognitive process of knowing and hence the very idea of what is considered as knowledge. In other words, it engages less with the marginalization of the oppressed castes in the modern institutions of knowledge production, which has already been discussed widely in the scholarship. Rather, the author focuses on how the modern colonial-brahminical concept of knowledge invalidated many other forms of knowing practices and how historically caste domination transformed from the claims of superiority in acharam (ritual practices) to the claims of superiority in possession of knowledge. In short, the book investigates the transformations of caste practices in twentieth-century India and the role of knowledge in this transformation and in the continuation of these oppressive practices. It also diverges from the tradition of considering colonial power as the determining force and actions of the communities as response to this power. The author situates the domination and subordination as interaction and indicates that, in India, colonial modernity emerged as colonial-brahmanical modernity. The periodization-twentieth century-is also indicative of moving away from the dominant classification of colonial and postcolonial, and hence posits the argument that postcolonial practices of knowledge are a continuation of the colonial-brahmanical practices formed in the first half of the twentieth century"--
List of contents
Acknowledgements; Notes of Transliteration; Introduction: Caste, Knowledge, and Power; 1. An Ashari World of Knowing; 2. An Ashari World of Ignoring; 3. A Nampoothiri World of Acharam; 4. Nampoothiris and the Order of Knowledge; 5. Asharis and the Order of Knowledge; Postscript: Towards and Artisanal Way of Practice of Knowing; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
K. N. Sunandan is Assistant Professor in the School of Liberal Studies at Azim Premji University (APU), Bengaluru. Prior to joining APU, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre of Developing Societies, New Delhi, as part of the Transnational Research Group project funded by the Max Weber Foundation, Germany. He has also taught at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tulajapur. Besides his academic pursuits, he writes in Malayalam and has authored several articles and short stories.
Summary
Explores the emergence of knowledge as a measure of human in the colonial and casteist contexts in twentieth century Malabar, India. It undertakes a comparative study of two caste communities in Malabar – Asharis and Nampoothiris for their varied interactions with and intervention in the emerging colonial forms of knowledge production.
