“Caste at Work”: Caste Work and Reflexivity to Maintain and Resist Caste in Organizations

Despite growing scholarly attention to caste within management and organization studies, an understanding of how caste is maintained and resisted in organizations is limited. We theorize caste as a social-symbolic object defined by purity—hierarchical, ritualistic, and boundary purity. Using social-symbolic work, we theorize caste work and its three forms at multiple levels: purity work, dehumanizing work, and caste defiance work. Building on this, we develop a typology of caste actors that illuminates the underexamined role of reflexivity in the maintenance and resistance of caste in organizations across the globe. Through such theorizing, we contribute to existing scholarship on social-symbolic work by providing a conceptual expansion beyond previously identified forms and highlighting broader implications in how other forms of social-symbolic work can be conceptualized. We also contribute to the literature on inequality by offering insights on work that resists and challenges caste, which has implications for more inclusive organizational practices.