Placing Caste: Spatialization, Urban Segregation, and Musical Boundary-Making.

This article examines how caste-based social inequalities in Chennai, India, are spatialized through place identity and expressed in two distinct musical worlds: Carnatic music, associated with Brahmin (upper caste) elites, and Gaana music, linked to Dalit (previously "untouchable" caste) urban residents. It argues that Brahmin elites maintain symbolic power via exclusive cultural norms and spatial clustering in neighborhoods like Mylapore, while Dalits experience stigmatized place identities tied to North Chennai, which reinforce caste discrimination and urban segregation. Gaana musicians actively manage, reappropriate, and resist this stigma through their music, which increasingly serves as a site of anti-caste protest and cultural assertion challenging marginalization. The study highlights the importance of cultural practices in understanding the symbolic and spatial dimensions of caste segregation beyond class-based analyses in urban India.