Do name changes to "acaste" names by the Sinhalese indicate a diminishing significance of caste

Bibliographic Data

ID3877939
AuthorsM W Amarasiri De Silva (0000-0003-3341-4261, University of Pittsburgh, corresponding author), Mw Amarasiri De Silva
Year2018
Volume30
Issue4
Pages303-325
Publication date2018-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCultural Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0921-3740 • E-ISSN: 1461-7048
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0921374019829605
OpenAlexW2913490624
LanguageEN
References cited20

In modern Sri Lankan society, caste has become less significant as a marker of social identity and exclusion than was the case in the past. While acknowledging this trend across South Asian societies, the literature does not adequately explain why this is happening. Increasing urbanization, the growing number of inter-caste marriages, the expanding middle class, and the bulging youth population have all been suggested as contributory factors. In rural Sri Lanka, family names are used as identifiers of family and kinship groups within each caste. The people belonging to the "low castes" identified with derogatory village and family names are socially marginalized and stigmatized. Social segregation, marked with family names and traditional caste occupations, makes it difficult for the low-caste people to move up in the class ladder, and socialize in the public sphere. Political and economic development programs helped to improve the living conditions and facilities in low-caste villages, but the lowness of such castes continued to linger in the social fabric. Socially oppressed low-caste youth in rural villages moved to cities and the urban outskirts, found non-caste employment, and changed their names to acaste names. By analyzing newspaper notifications and selected ethnographic material, this article shows how name changes among the Sinhalese have facilitated individualization and socialization by people who change their names to acaste names and seek freedom to choose their own employment, residence, marriage partners, and involvement in activities of wider society-a form of assimilation, in the context of growing urbanization and modernization

Caste · Economic growth · Geography · Kinship · Political science · Population · Social class · Sociology · Urbanization · Anthropology · Demography · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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