Anthropology presentation By: Harman Sondhi, Uvaice Nasir, and Suraj Gupta

Class and caste

Social Class: A category of individuals who enjoy equal or nearly equal prestige according to the evaluation system The qualification “nearly equal” is important, for a certain amount of inequality may occur even within a given class When fine and detailed distinctions are made, many classes are recognized. On the other hand when few general distinctions are made, few classes are distinguished Canada is a class society, with labels such as upper, middle and lower classes generally tied to income levels The class people belong to is earned though endeavor and is thus known as achieved status Achieved Status: Status an individual earns

Despite their close association, the clothing worn by these two individuals and the way they interact clearly indicate they are of different social classes.

Based on gender, ethnicity, and even age, Canadians experience unequal access to education and employment opportunities, which often determine wealth and ensuing status Caste: a special form of social class in which membership is determined by birth and remains fixed for life Castes are strongly endogamous, and offspring are automatically members of their parents caste. Ascribed Status: Status people are born into. Practiced with strict endogamy and membership by descent In Hindu castes,there is an association of particular castes with specific occupations and customs, such as food habits and style of dress, along with rituals involving notions of purity and impurity

The literally thousands of castes are organized into a hierarchy of four named categories: • At the top are the priests, or the Brahmins, the bearers of universal order and values and of highest ritual purity • Below them are the are the powerful, though less pure, warriors. Dominant at the local level, besides fulfilling warrior functions, they control all village lands • The two lower ranking, landless caste groups consist of artisans and labourers who perform furnishing services to the landowners with tools that they themselves own • At the bottom of the system are the outcasts, or the “untouchables”, who neither own land or tools. In India they are considered most impure of all, although they constitute a large labour pool at the beck and call of those controlling economic and political affairs, the landholding warriors

In South Africa: • Blacks traditionally were relegated to a low ranking stratum in society • Until recently, Blacks were barred by law from marrying non-Blacks • Blacks could also, by law, not hold property except to a limited degree in specified “black homelands” • Most Blacks still perform menial jobs for Whites • Even in the small cadre of “middle class” Blacks that existed were, until recently, prohibited from living where whites do or even swimming in the same water or holding the hand of someone who is White.

Social classes are manifested in 3 ways -> Verbal Evaluation ->Patterns of Association ->Symbolic Indicators

Verbal Evaluation: the way people in a stratified society evaluate society members This can be political, from the military, religious, economic, wealth, kinship, and many other traits Cultural values may change, so something regarded favourably at one time may not be at another For example, the official language of Egypt is classical Arabic, which is the language of the Qur’an Even though it is highly valued, this language is only used in documents and during formal occasions Those more proficient, ironically, are the lower class because they go to public schools, where classical Arabic is taught The upper class go to private schools, where they learn the foreign languages essential for success in international diplomacy, business, and industry

Patterns of Association : whom we associate with and in what context, reflecting social class In Western society, informal, friendly relations take place mostly within our own class Relations with other classes tend to be less informal For example, an executive and a janitor may have frequent contact but it occurs in setting of office and usually required stereotyped behavioural patterns

Symbolic Indicators: In a stratified society, activities and possessions indicative of social class For example, in North American societies, symbolic indicators include occupation (a garbage collector has different class status than a physician); wealth (rich people generally are in a higher social class than poor people); dress (designer or discount); form of recreation (upper-class are expected to play golf rather than shoot pool down at the pool hall) etc. Symbolic indicators may be cruder reflections of class position than verbal indicators of patterns of association Symbolic indicators involve factors of lifestyle, but differences in life chances also may signal differences in class standing. Life is apt to be less hard for members of an upper class opposed to a lower class

Mobility

Mobility: the ability to change one’s class position. Hindu caste system has mobility. Some of it can be linked to the recent changes that “modernization” has brought to India. For example, in the state of Rajasthan, those who own and control most of the land and who are wealthy and politically powerful are not of the warrior caste, but are of the lowest caste. Their tenants and labourers are in fact the Brahmins. This is completely opposite of the Caste system in other parts of India. A group of leather workers in the untouchable category who have gained political power in Indian’s new democracy are trying to better their position by claiming they are Brahmins who were tricked in the past into doing defiling work.

While individuals cannot move up and down the caste systems, whole groups can (depending on claims they can make for higher status) With their limited mobility, caste-structured groups exemplify closed-class systems. Closed class systems: stratified societies that severely restrict social mobility Open-class systems: stratified societies that permit a great deal of social mobility Despite ideologies like “rag to riches”, it is still hard to move severely up or down a group, however over generations, it can amount to a major change.

The degree of mobility in a stratified society is related to the prevailing kind of family organization In extended families, mobility is difficult because each individual is strongly tied to the extended family. So for a person to move to a higher social class, his family must move up as well. It is easier for nuclear families, where the individual is tied to less people. Under neolocal residence, people leave their family through marriage, education, occupation, disassociation from the lower-class family and move up in society.

In Canada, the ability to “move up” in the system of stratification is increasingly dependent on access to higher education

GAME TIME!