Caste and Equality : Friendship Patterns among Young Academics in Urban India / Stephanie Stocker.

Frontmatter -- Table of contents -- Notes -- Introduction -- Part I: Friendship in India -- a 'social phenomenon of modernity'? -- 1. Anthropological accounts of modernity -- 2. Research question: Peer groups among Tamil graduate students -- Part II: Making and maintaining friendship -- 3. Exposure and status on campus -- 4. Beyond the campus: Among friends in the domestic sphere -- Part III: Just a friend? Ritual implications -- 5. "Key site of cultural contestation"? Youth, education and marriage -- 6. Reflections on compatibility: The students2 perspective -- 7. Peers as mediators in matchmaking and pre-wedding ceremonies -- 8. Peers in wedding ceremonies -- 9. Conclusion and outlook -- References and literature -- Illustrations, tables and maps -- Abbreviations -- Glossary -- Acknowledgements.

Caste hierarchy has frequently been singled out as the overriding principle of Indian society. This book examines its significance among the highly-educated middle class in the Tamil town of Madurai. As part of their distinctive status as `educated persons', young graduates form egalitarian constellations by ostensibly subverting the boundaries inscribed by caste hierarchy. Stephanie Stocker explores how these friendships are maintained in wider social contexts, finding that the actors engage in supportive networks throughout career and marriage events. Instead of assuming these relationships to be of an entirely different, `alternative category', however, Stocker's study proposes a dynamic character of friendship which in fact remains in conjunction with Indian values of hierarchy.

In English.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed June 01., 2017).

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