Meatless Boundaries: Practice of Vegetarianism Among Brahmin Men

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 15. Religion & Cultural Consumption

Abstract

This study explores how vegetarianism functions as a marker of caste identity and the reproduction of caste boundaries among Indian Brahmin men in the U.S. Drawing from ethnographic interviews and grounded in the works of B.R. Ambedkar, Stuart Hall, and Pierre Bourdieu, the research investigates how dietary practices are embedded within symbolic systems of purity and hierarchy. In India, vegetarianism has historically served as a mechanism of social segregation, legitimized through religious and cultural discourse. The study examines how these meanings travel and adapt in diasporic contexts, specifically in the U.S. By analyzing the persistence and transformation of caste-coded vegetarianism, this research highlights how everyday consumption practices sustain systems of inequality while also revealing sites of negotiation in global contexts.

Author

• Anagha Rao, University of Texas at Arlington