Abstract:
This paper, co-authored with anthropologist Nate Roberts, uses the
occasion of the publication of US academic Isabel Wilkerson's 2020
bestseller, Caste: The Lies that Divide Us, and the responses to it from
South Asianist scholars, to identify and critique widespread approaches
to race-caste comparison. Most South Asianists liked the book but were
doubtful about the analytic value of comparison. Our view is the
opposite--we find the book wanting but endorse the comparison. To
explain why, the paper outlines two broad approaches to the study of
inherited inequality in the US and India, revealing problems in
methodology that are remarkably similar in both national intellectual
contexts, and describing as well the political entailments of these
approaches.