A Complex Social Web

This book which threatens to inundate you with unending details eventually promises you something: ethnicity is something that we need to look for as an explanation for the social dynamics of our urban settings. Ethnicity transcends such frameworks as caste with which sociologists have honed their craft hitherto and remains the mutating presence amidst the creeping universality. The concept of class is resurrected to ensure that ethnicity does not collapse into the mundane localisms of caste, sect, religion and language. The study revolves around Belgaum City, presently located in Karnataka, but with an aging claim with the neighbouring state of Maharastra. For a number of reasons it seems to be the appropriate setting to mount the argument regarding the centrality of ethnicity in understanding social relations in India and how class, understood in terms of education, income and occupation, ensures that the social landscape does not become a dumping ground. Much to be appreciated across the work are the meticulous accounts of the various influences that have come to mark the social space of Belgaum although when it comes to information with regard to the cleavages of Catholicism or the larger dynamics of Karnataka politics there are generalizations much wanting. The social divisions of the city, their interactions and intersections stand out as you plough through the work.