Stigma and Caste Labor in Urban India
In this paper, I argue that on the one hand the sociology of identities creates caste and religion as distinct social categories pertaining to Hindus and Muslims respectively. On the other hand, systems of capitalism and urbanization conflate practices that define caste and religion through stigmatized labor and spatial segregation. In this context, centering stigma as a category is important because it allows for studying cross-cutting structures and undoing...