Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations

Where does caste collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
caste2 CONSTRUCTSSocial casteGHURYE · HEREDITARY RANKInsect casteOSTER & WILSON · DIVISION OF LABOUR

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1932Social caste1978Insect caste
2026

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Sociology & anthropology

A ranked, hereditary social group you are born into

In sociology and anthropology, a caste is a hereditary, endogamous social group fixed in a ranked order, so that a person's status, occupation, and marriage pool are ascribed at birth rather than achieved. Ghurye's Caste and Race in India set out the features scholars treat as diagnostic (segmental division, hierarchy, restrictions on contact and commensality, hereditary occupation, and endogamy), and Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus reframed the whole system around a religious logic of purity and pollution. The referent is a form of rigid social stratification, studied through mobility, intermarriage, and ritual rank, and it has nothing to do with the division of labour inside an insect colony beyond the shared image of a fixed, inherited place.[1][2]

Unit
A hereditary rank position within a ranked social order
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Studied through endogamy rates, occupational inheritance, commensality and contact rules, and mobility across generations

Entomology

A specialised worker type within a social-insect colony

In entomology, a caste is one of the structurally and behaviourally distinct classes of individuals in a eusocial insect colony (queens, workers, soldiers), among which reproduction and labour are divided, with membership usually set during development rather than by heredity alone. Oster and Wilson's Caste and Ecology in the Social Insects treats caste as an optimisation problem, asking how colonies allocate individuals among tasks and morphs to maximise fitness. The referent is a developmentally determined division of labour within a colony, quantified by caste ratios and task allocation, and it borrows only the word, not the meaning, from the human social category of inherited rank.[3]

Unit
The proportion and task allocation of each morphological or behavioural class in a colony
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Quantified by caste ratios, morphometric classes, task-allocation studies, and the environmental and genetic triggers of caste determination

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Nearby collisions

allocation3 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, three constructsbirth3 fields · 5 citationsjingle · one word, three constructscategory4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructs

References

  1. Ghurye, G. S. (2005). Caste and race in India. Popular Prakashan. (Original work published 1932) ISBN 9788171542055
  2. Dumont, L. (1980). Homo hierarchicus: The caste system and its implications (Complete rev. English ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226169637
  3. Oster, G. F., & Wilson, E. O. (1978). Caste and ecology in the social insects. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691023618

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