Fluids and impurity: the gender and caste system in the Indian Himalayas

Abstract

Impurity conveyed by fluids is a symbol and a tool for gender and caste discrimination in India. These fluids occupy asymmetric functions in the creation of kinship and gender relationships. Their circulation between bodies therefore requires a strict control; not prohibiting contact between castes, but ensuring a one-way transmission linked to a relation of power and subordination which is also related to the reproduction of the clans. Taking our ethnographic data from a Himalayan valley as a point of departure, we will situate this “mechanic of fluids” with regard to some classical theories of impurity, offering our own renewed and current interpretation.