Race and Caste

This panel seeks to foreground caste as an overarching framework to understand the many discriminations and oppressions taking place worldwide. In addition to the individual experiences of facing casteism or racism in different social contexts, this panel will dive deeper into the relations of identity, culture and economy – potentially drawing a global structural explanation of how discriminatory processes operate. This is to say that instances of racism and casteism are inter-related; they are driven by a common formulation of power which encapsulates social, cultural and economic relations. Understanding this formulation becomes central to any efforts of dismantling it. We propose caste as this formulation.