Volume 27, Issue 2
DOI: 10.53555/03276716.2018.1071
Caste and the Question of the Other: A Study in Cultural Phenomenology
Abstract
If phenomenology is defined as our encounter with the world of phenomena and in this process of encounter we understand that we are in a process of constant engagement with something; then cultural phenomenology also calls for an understanding of our everyday ‘being’ to that which is ‘given’ or ‘already there’ and come to a better understanding of how our participation is essential to the understanding of the structures of the ‘cultural/social’; i.e. gender, race, and class and caste. Hence, what I mean here by ‘cultural phenomenology’ is the laying bare of the structures, especially the hidden and unmanifested layers, of cultural consciousness. we contend that cultural phenomenology has a great deal to contribute to the future of phenomenology, and having relinquished the presumption of unearthing the universal structures of consciousness, cultural phenomenology, according to me, is closer to the postmodern ethos of suspicion of grand narratives. In this sense, cultural phenomenology is a vital way of doing phenomenology in contemporary times. I also think that the later Heidegger’s history of being in an attempt to uncover the Western understanding of being in various historical epochs, especially during the era of late modernity, was a grand way of achieving such a project. In this paper, I want to undertake one such exercise in cultural phenomenology— that of unearthing the average Indian’s ‘casteist’ manner of encountering the other person, and its ethical implications. I shall be referring to Heidegger and Levinas intermittently.
Keywords
Caste, Varna Dharma, difference, other, cultural phenomenology, politics, religion, ethics