Dear colleagues,
The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo (Tobunken) will host a lecture by Dr. Julien Levesque (University of Zurich) on “Caste and Islam in South Asia: A Genealogy of Contemporary Debates” on November 5 (Sat). Those who are interested in participating in the event are cordially invited to register in advance by October 31 (details below).
Lecture Title: Caste and Islam in South Asia: A Genealogy of Contemporary Debates
Speaker: Julien Levesque (Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich; https://www.aoi.uzh.ch/en/indologie/personen/wissangestellte/levesque.html)
Date and time: November 5 (Sat), 2022, at 16:00–17:30
Venue: Online via Zoom, with a limited capacity for in-person participation by invitation.
Lecture Abstract:
In recent years, scholars of South Asian Islam and Indian Muslims themselves have paid renewed attention to caste. This renewed interest is largely the result of the emergence of a critique internal to Muslim politics, carried by activists from marginalized caste-groups who challenge the leadership of the dominant groups. This presentation aims to throw light on the contemporary debates on Muslim caste in India, by providing a genealogy of the categories in use. In order to show where contemporary debates come from, I will highlight three historical moments in the scholarship on Muslim caste. First, I will first show that colonial scholars and administrators tended to understand the phenomenon of Muslim caste as the product of a history of conquest and miscegenation. This conception presided over the Ashraf-Ajlaf dichotomy that still informs contemporary debates. Second, I will turn to the socio-anthropological debates of the second half of the twentieth century on whether a caste system existed among Muslims. I suggest that the Hindu-centric understanding of caste hindered scholarship on Muslim caste.
Third, I will explore how new legal conceptions of caste among Indian Muslims became a steppingstone for political mobilization since the 1990s. This mobilization, in turn, led to new scholarship that seeks to move beyond the conceptual limitations of previous research on Muslim caste. Finally, I will return to the present-day period and discuss the emancipatory potential of ongoing political strategies to woo Muslims from marginalized caste-groups.
How to Participate:
Please fill in the form at https://forms.gle/CzCJNGWdZAgg1bez8 by October 31, at 24:00 JST. Explanation about how the seminar will be held and how one can request an invitation for in-person participation is given in the form.
Contact Person: Kazuo Morimoto (morikazu[at]ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
*The announcement of a second lecture on November 10 (Thu) or 11 (Fri) will be released shortly.
This event is co-sponsored by the JSPS Kakenhi Project “Muslim Discourses Surrounding the Prophet Muhammad’s Kinfolk” (19H01317), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, and Kazuhiro Arai Laboratory, Faculty of Business and Commerce, Keio University.