Occupation, Dignity, and Space: The Rise of Dalit Studies

Dalit Studies has emerged as a new field of study in South Asia since the 1990s, helping to reorient scholarship's interest away from the study of untouchability as a phenomenon toward a recognition and recovery of Dalit actors. This review essay identifies three broad themes‐occupation, dignity, and space, and uses them to survey the literature on Dalit society over the last hundred years. It suggests that occupation was a prominent organizing category in colonial and early post‐colonial ethnographic writing that was used to catalogue and define Dalit religious traditions and socio‐economic practices. Struggles for dignity and efforts to eradicate caste inequality have become central concerns in more recent writings. This essay also draws attention to a less recognized theme by focusing on the role of space, particularly the role of jati mohallas, in mediating the experience of caste and shaping Dalit political consciousness.