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Crisis, Identity, and Social Distinction: Cultural Politics of Food, Taste, and Consumption in Late Colonial Bengal.
- Source :
-
Journal of Historical Sociology . Sep2006, Vol. 19 Issue 3, p245-265. 21p. - Publication Year :
- 2006
-
Abstract
- This paper explores the culture of taste in the production of an urban, Hindu, Bengali middle class in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bengal/India. It analyzes how the Bengali middle class, the bhadralok, attempted to construct a "doxa" of gastronomy in order to subsume a dominant position for itself and to classify hierarchically other classes and social groups. The aspirations of this class as the future guardians of an incipient nation were in reality a politics of self-identity, which was based on ideas of a cultural exclusivity. This politics of self-identity for the Bengali middle class were inextricably inter-woven with issues of modernity, nationalism, and colonialism. Through my analysis, I stress the importance of the "historical" or the "collective", particularly in the context of formation of the bhadralok, as a dominant class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *GASTRONOMY
*SOCIAL status
*NATIONALISM
*MIDDLE class
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 09521909
- Volume :
- 19
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Historical Sociology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 22063267
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6443.2006.00281.x