Siva and her sisters : gender, caste, and class in rural South India /

Includes bibliographical references (p. 255-260) and index

1. Introduction: The "Untouchable" Rejection of Hegemony and False Consciousness
2. "Kinship Burns!" Kinship Discourses and Gender
3. Marrying Money: Changing Preference and Practice in Tamil Marriage
4. Blood Across the Stars: Astrology and the Construction of Gender
5. The Vulnerability of Power: Puberty Rituals
6. Dancing the Goddess: Possession, Caste, and Gender
7. "Beware, It Sticks!" Discourses of Gender and Caste
8. Pauperizing the Rural Poor: Landlessness in Aruloor
9. Every Blade of Green: Landless Women Laborers, Production, and Reproduction
10. Discipline and Control: Labor Contracts and Rural Female Labor
11. Mutuality and Competition: Women Landless Laborers and Wage Rates
12. In God's Eyes: Gender, Caste, and Class in Aruloor.

This book examines two subordinated groups - "untouchables" and women - in a village in Tamilnadu, South India. The lives and work of "untouchable" women in this village provide a unique analytical focus that clarifies the ways in which three axes of identity - gender, caste, and class - are constructed in South India. Karin Kapadia argues that subordinated groups do not internalize the values of their masters but instead reject them in innumerable subtle ways. Kapadia contends that elites who hold economic power do not dominate the symbolic means of production. Looking at the everyday practices, rituals, and cultural discourses of Tamil low castes, she shows how their cultural values repudiate the norms of Brahminical elites. She also demonstrates that caste and class processes cannot be fully addressed without considering their interrelationship with gender.

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