Thinking with Signs: Caste, Ethnicity and the Dual Body in Contemporary Eastern Nepal

This article examines jat ('caste, ethnicity') through the lens of signed conversations in contemporary eastern Nepal, where both intimacy and inequality characterise inter-jat relations. Local deaf and hearing people refer in sign to a person's jat with an action taken as emblematic of that jat, such as drinking alcohol. Signers use the same phrases to discuss persons' actions, which may or may not conform to typifications. Analysing signed discourse reveals that people negotiate a shifting social landscape through an approach to bodies as ontologically dual, belonging both to selves with idiosyncratic habits and to jat groups with prescribed and proscribed practices.

Automated summary

This article examines the concept of "jat" through the lens of signed conversations in contemporary eastern Nepal. People use gestures to indicate a person's jat identity, such as drinking alcohol. Analyzing signed discourse reveals how individuals adapt to a changing social environment by combining the ontological duality of bodies with their own habits and the prescribed and proscribed practices of jat groups.