000			01537nam a2200193 4500
008			240709b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780195304343
082			_a305.5122 _bSNO
100			_aSnodgrass, Jeffrey G. _911363
245			_aCasting kings: _bbards and Indian modernity
260			_aNew York _bOxford University Press _c2006
300			_axxii, 226p., _bhb.
500			_ahttps://global.oup.com/academic/product/casting-kings-9780195307757?cc=in&lang=en&#
520			_aBased on three years of anthropological fieldwork in the Indian state of Rajasthan, Casting Kings explores the manner in which semi-nomadic performers known as Bhats understand, and also subvert, caste hierarchies. A number of scholars have recently contended that caste is invented and thus a fiction of a kind. But focus in these studies is typically placed on the way caste is imagined according to the agendas and desires of elite Westerners such as colonial officials. In this book, by contrast, the author argues that Bhats themselves understand the imaginative dimensions of caste relations. Indeed, such insights are shown to lie at the heart of the Bhats traditional profession of praise- and insult-singing. Likewise, the author demonstrates how the ability to cleverly rework and even sabotage lingering caste inequalities continues to form the basis for Bhat claims to status and dignity in contemporary India.
650			_aCaste - India _911364
650			_aAnthropology _91476
650			_aRajasthan- India _911365
942			_cG
999			_c10442 _d10442