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About this talk

What might the conveyance of fish by bicycle tell us about the shifting contours and material rearrangements of caste in the city? Following fish as it moves through Kolkata, strapped onto bicycles and carried across auctions, markets, and neighborhoods, I explore how mobility and displacement reconfigure caste relations. In Bengal, fishing is embedded in histories of untouchability and dispossession, even as fish has long held immense culinary and ritual significance. As a commodity, fish unsettles the occupational and ritual boundaries through which caste has been organized, moving across the social worlds that give it meaning and value. I ask what fish in motion makes visible about the ongoing making and unmaking of caste in Kolkata.

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