South Asian Studies Colloquium Series: Where India Goes: Abandoned Toilets, Stunted Development, and the Costs of Caste, Dean Spears

Event time: 
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Henry R. Luce Hall (LUCE ), 203 See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
Event description: 

Around the world, people live longer, better lives than in centuries past, in part because of the rapid adoption of latrines and toilets that keep fecal germs away from growing children. India is an exception. Compared to the rest of the world, latrine and toilet adoption in India have been very slow and open defecation remains far too common. This is one reason why infants in India are more likely to die than in neighboring poorer countries like Bangladesh and Nepal and are more likely to be stunted than children in sub-Saharan Africa. Because early-life conditions have life-long consequences, when children cannot develop to their potential, economic development is stunted, too. In their new book Where India Goes, Diane Coffey and Dean Spears demonstrate that India’s exceptional open defecation is not the result of poverty. It is an enduring consequence of the caste system, untouchability, and ritual purity. Coffey and Spears tell an unsanitized story of an unsanitary subject, with characters spanning the worlds of rural development policy.

Dean Spears