Hierarchy and Stratification in the Late Modern Period (ca. 1920-1960)

Abstract:

A common assumption in the fifties and sixties was that in the industrialized, modern world, traditional orders of caste or ‘estate’ had been replaced by class, not in the Marxian sense of the term but rather as the unmitigated translation into rank of economic criteria. A holistic and hierarchical view of society as composed of communities with a determinate position in relation to the whole had dissolved into an amorphous mass of competing individuals. My point here is quite simply that this did not happen during the ‘modern’ period, while I leave open the options of analyzing post-modern society. Holistic models of society, proffered by the dominant, remained important in the modern period, and I shall argue that the structure of these models remained hierarchical in the Dumontian sense. I shall base this assertion on various empirical studies of urban and industrial studies (mainly British and American) dating from the twenties to the fifties, and explore approaches to the hierarchical order of the period with the aid of perspectives from Veblen, Davis and Moore, and Bourdieu.

Bionote:
Harald Tambs-Lyche, professor emeritus at the Jules Verne University, Amiens, France, has written four monographs: London Patidars: a Case Study in Urban Ethnicity (Routledge, 1980), Power, Profit and Poetry: Traditional Society in Kathiawar, Western India (Manohar, 1997), The Good Country: Individual, Situation and Society in Saurashtra (Manohar, 2004) and Business Brahmins: The Gauda Saraswat Brahmins of South Kanara, India (Manohar, 2011). A theoretical work, Demystifying Caste: Elements for a Theory is ready for the publisher. He has edited or co-edited several books. With Marine Carrin, he wrote An Encounter of Peripheries: Santals and their Missionaries, 1870-1900 (Manohar, 2008).

Venue: The Department of Social Anthropology's seminar room, 8th floor, Fosswinckelsgt. 6.

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For the spring of 2014 the BSAS series is organized by Bjørn Enge Bertelsen. For further information, please contact Bjorn.Bertelsen@sosantr.uib.no .