Abstract: For those interested in the comparative dimension of the social sciences, the concept of caste and its trajectory since its emergence in the early 16th century in India and outside, present a sociological case whose complexity allows one to question the relevance of the comparative use of this concept. Grounded on secondary literature and focusing on the circulation of people and concepts between Europe, India and the United States, the aim of this presentation, a work in progress, is to attempt a partial mapping of the uses of the word caste and to question the meaning of the social realities that this word refers to by paying attention to the contexts of enunciation in which this concept is deployed and to the properties of the scholars who use it.
Speaker: Roland Lardinois is a sociologist and an emeritus research director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). His research focuses on the history of Indian studies in France and the sociology of Indian engineers. He has published Scholars and Prophets. Sociology of India from France 19th-20th centuries (2013) and Les mondes de l’ingénieur en Inde (19e-21e siècle), ed. with Charles Gadea (2022). Recently, Lardinois has also published several articles on the issue of caste, including “Caste in Higher Education in India” in Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2021) and “The History of Caste Through Ages: Concept, Words, Things”, in Surinder Jodkha and Jules Naudet (ed.), Castes (OUP, 2023).
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