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Cast(e) in Disgust: Is an Empathic Reading of Caste Possible?

This essay examines the question of empathy within the discourses of caste in India and argues that the presence of this deeply hierarchical system, which is premised on the idea of disgust, does not allow for the production of empathy or empathic political spaces. Locating itself in a particular case of caste violence and its counter discourse in the Una District of the state of Gujarat in western India, this essay examines the affectual politics of the presence of the animal and the animal-like in caste publics and the consequences that it has for the question of empathy.