Based 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.
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