Page 260 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 12: Mobility in Closed and Open Systems of Stratification

• “An open system of stratification is ultimately best suited when mobility and class status are Notes
plotted, or can be plotted, on a single quantifiable variable.” “An open system gets complicated
once elements of incommensurable differences are superimposed on it.”
• In an open system of stratification, “hierarchy may be fixed and firm, but individuals can go
up or even down the hierarchy”.
• In a closed system of stratification, caste, race, religion, ethnicity, etc., are central
considerations. Ascribed characteristics are given prime importance in a such system.
However, such considerations are always questioned and disputed. As in an open system,
quantity is the main yardstick, quality is the deciding criterion in a closed system of
stratification. Distinctions between groups of people such as castes/races are elaborated in
the closed system. Both difference and hierarchy characterize such a system. The two together
make the system rigid, hence mobility becomes an uphill endeavour.
• An open system develops a tendency of resistance to change and mobility, and similarly, a
closed system under acute forces and pressures, bends toward change and mobility. Even
the caste system was challenged in ancient and medieval periods, and it showed resilience
and dynamism. Today, the intercaste relations, which were the bedrock of the caste system,
have disappeared. Commensal ties have nearly vanished.
• The caste system has been pivotal in India, social mobility is mainly revolved arpund it.
Social mobility, by its definition, indicates either as a threat to the persisting and relatively
static system, or it implies minor changes in regard to statuses and roles of the members of
a society, or as a drastic measure, it displaces the existing system and replaces it by a new
one. Adjustments with and changes in a given system of stratification are named as horizontal
mobility or positional change.
• Changes in the caste system are referred to as positional changes, and changes of the caste
system are named as vertical or structural changes. Social mobility, as characterized in terms
of sanskritization, westernization, universalization and parochialization, implies positional
changes in the cultural domain of Indian society.
• The emphasis in the structural-historical approach is on displacement of the old urban
dominated people by a new set of people drawn from the advanced rural elements. Political
consciousness and democratization of politics have brought about such a social transformation.
Land reforms and massive irrigation schemes have resulted in the embourgeoisiement of the
tenants of the pre-independence period. Abolition of landlordism has created a new social
fabric in rural India. Structural change creates various new tensions and contradictions in
terms of divides between rich and poor, rural and urban, and local, regional and national
formations.
• The Marxist approach discusses on inter-group relations based on the mode of production,
social classes and the state. The main point in this approach is related to base and
superstructure or relations between core and periphery in the context of the role of capitalist
economy.
• Social mobility is perceived in the caste system in terms of change in the criteria of status
determination, hereditary occupations, jajmani obligations, observance of certain rituals,
acceptance of modern occupations, education, migration and positions of power in political
bodies. Social mobility, even with regard to the caste system, is not monolithic. It occurs at
three levels : family, group, and individual. One can understand better the entire gamut of
mobility by analysing it at these levels. The extent, quantity and quality of social mobility
can be gauzed by seeing individual, family and group as analytically distinct as well as
interrelated units of social mobility.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 255