Suchergebnisse

In this article, the concepts of 'racialisation', 'racial projects', and 'racisms' are deployed to analyse the social construction of distinctive groups and the dynamics of group conflicts in India where the white vs. non-white binary as the key element of race relations does not exist. My main argument is that in India the racialisation of specific groups constructs racial categories that intersect with class relations, to produce inequalities and struggles over material and non-material resources. A related argument is that despite the seemingly seamless braiding of race and class, it is in fact class that plays a more significant role in producing as well as sustaining racialised social inequality.

Abstract'The metaphor of race is a dangerous weapon whether it is used for asserting white supremacy or for making demands on behalf of the disadvantaged groups...Treating caste as a form of race is politically mischievous; what is worse, it is scientifically nonsensical'. Andre Beteille (2004: 52)'…what is in fact "scientifically nonsensical" is Professor Beteille's misunderstanding of "race". What is mischievous is his insistence that India's system of ascribed system of social inequality should be exempted from the provisions of a UN Convention whose sole purpose is the extension of human rights to include freedom from all forms of discrimination and intolerance – and to which India, along with most other nations, has committed itself" Gerald Berreman (cited in Thorat and Umakant 2004: xxv)'The possibility that the current Indian Hindu‐Muslim or upper versus lower‐caste conflict may be, in a significant sense, a variant of a modern problem of "ethnicity" or "race" is seldom entertained…"racism" is thought of as something the white people do to us. What Indians do to one another are variously described as "communalism", "regionalism" and "casteism" but never "racism"'. Dipesh Chakrabarty (1994: 145)

AbstractGlobalization has influenced the conduct of scientific research in a number of expected and unexpected ways. At the same time the emergence of specific scientific fields has also influenced the texture and trajectory of globalization. In this paper the relationship between globalization and genomics is analyzed. Much like the globalization of traditional manufacturing, genomics research represents a phase of global bio-capitalism. With specific reference to Singapore, the possible social, economic and political effects of the rapid global circulation of scientists, knowledge, capital and DNA are examined in this paper.

This article offers an alternative framework for understanding 'communal' conflict in India. Largely because recurring sectarian conflicts involve groups whose boundaries are demarcated by religion, most scholars have focused their attention on either specific religious doctrines or the policy of secularism to explain the phenomenon. In this article it is argued that significance of religion, secularism or anti-secularism has been overemphasized in the interpretation of communal conflict in India. The concept of 'racialization' is deployed to argue that in India communal identities have in fact been 'racialized' and recurring conflicts share striking structural and ideological similarities with racial conflicts in other parts of the world. A historical narrative of the political process of 'racialization' of identities in India is offered with the aim of re-thinking existing explanations of such conflicts.