‘Go on, just try some!’: Meat and Meaning-Making among South Indian Christians

Putting Indian Christianities into Context: Biographies of Christian Conversion in a Leprosy Colony

“…Dube cites one man who, asked to perform a menial task, is quoted in the archives as responding: 'No, I have became a Christian and am one of the Sahibs; I shall do no more begar'. 24 As I have argued elsewhere 25 , leprosy-affected people in contemporary India were also able to negotiate new, more positive identities through Christianity, where their condition was not seen as a consequence of negative karma, but, in some instances, as the route through which they had found God. As Christians, meat-eating, for example, became seen as a positive celebration of their identity, rather than as a habit that demarcated inferiority or pollution 26 .…”

Understanding transition in animal based food consumption: a case study in the city of Vadodara in Gujarat (India)

“…Some academics have reported that lower castes converted to vegetarianism (Michelutti 2008;Staples 2014) as a means to upgrade their status in society via the Sanskritization process 5 and the adoption of the Brahmanical practice of purity (Srinivas 1952). Conversely, nonvegetarianism as well has a positive symbolic and social value by contributing to the construction of the identity of other social or religious groups, such as scheduled castes, Muslims or Christians (Ilaiah 1996;Desai 2008;Staples 2008Staples , 2014Sebastia 2017), for whom meat is a premium dish offered to visitors. An ethnographic study on the Malayali Hindu group in Kerala (Osella and Osella 2008) showcased the process of social distinction through diets: although Brahmins are vegetarian and non-Brahmin Nayars are usually non-vegetarian, during religious festivals they are vegetarian, and the caste of Viswakarma craftsmen positioned just below promotes vegetarianism, contrary to Dalits for whom this practice has no value.…”

Protéger et abattre les bovins au pays de la «vache sacrée»: usages symboliques, politiques et économiques des vaches et des buffles dans l'lnde contemporaine

“…En réaction à ces manoeuvres politiques, la consommation de boeuf peut être mobilisée et mise en valeur par les membres de groupes marginalisés comme une fierté culturelle (Staples 2008) ou comme un outil de revendication politique. Un militant Dalit chrétien nous a ainsi affirmé qu'il était fier de manger régulièrement de la viande bovine : autant qu'un plaisir gustatif, cette pratique témoigne de son rejet de ce qu'il nomme le « système ségrégationniste » imposé par les hautes castes hindoues.…”