Caste, class, and community in India: an ethnographic approach

Abstract

The anthropology of India has been dominated by an emphasis on caste that has inhibited an integrated approach to understanding class in India. Using an ethnographic approach that takes into account the symbolic and material aspects of caste and class, this article focuses on the attempts to form a "community" of potters among a large group of potter-artisans in central India. It is problematic, however, to view this community as a federation of potter castes or as simply a bloc of classes. Katznelson's (1986) insights into different aspects of class formation help to understand how caste and class get constructed in the formation of a community. Here the apparently caste-based dispositions of potters reveals a class consciousness that is culturally organized by a custom that men work the potter's wheel and women do the marketing. (Caste, class community, India).