Resisting Caste in Diaspora: Mobility, Agency and Activism

This Special Issue examines how casteism is contested within diasporic contexts through practices of agency, public articulation and collective action. It focuses on how caste-based discrimination is articulated and challenged within institutional, cultural and mediated spaces. In these settings, recognition remains limited or contested, positioning such acts of articulation and response as inherently political. It argues that migration produces conditions in which claims to dignity and equality must be actively asserted, especially where casteism is reframed as culture or rendered invisible within dominant legal and social frameworks. The issue situates caste as a global structure operating through social relations, symbolic authority and institutional practices while examining its discriminatory effects within diasporic settings. It emphasizes the role of Ambedkarite thought as a critical resource guiding strategies of resistance, collective organization and rights-based claims. The contributions demonstrate that anti-caste politics in diaspora is sustained through public articulation, institutional intervention and collective mobilization, positioning refusal and organized action as key to confronting caste-based discrimination in transnational settings.