Cultures of Caste and Rural Development in the Social Network of a South Indian Village

Cultures of caste in much of rural India have become entangled withinstitutions of rural development. In community-driven development, emphasis on “localresource persons” and “community spokespersons” has created new opportunities forbrokerage and patronage within some villages, which interact with existing forms ofauthority and community afforded by caste identity and intra-caste headmanship. In thisarticle, we study how these entangled cultures of caste and development translate intosocial network structures using data on friendship ties from a south Indian village. Wefind that although caste continues to be important in shaping community structures andleadership in the village’s network, its influence varies across different communities.This fluidity of caste’s influence on community network structures is argued to be theresult of multiple distinct yet partially overlapping cultural-political forces, whichinclude sharedness afforded by caste identity and new forms of difference and inequalityeffected through rural development