Modern Asian Studies: page 1 of 49 © Cambridge University Press 2018 doi:10.1017/S0026740X16000755 Caste Dominance and Territory in South India: Understanding Kammas’ socio-spatial mobilily* DALEL BENBABAALI School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford Enmail: dalel benbabaali@areaox.ac.uk Abstract ‘This article argues that taking territory into account is essential to understand the change in the scale and nature of caste dominance in contemporary India. ‘The demonstration is based on an analysis of the socio-spatial trajectories of the Kammas—a dominant caste from Coastal Andhra, where they continue to own, ‘most of the land, even though they have migrated in large numbers towards the interior and southern regions of the Indian peninsula, both to newly irrigated areas and to the cities. The key positions they occupy in the politics and economy fof Andhra Pradesh confer upon them a hegemonic character. However, this hegemony is threatened by the growing resistance of Dalits to caste and clase oppression, while Kamma cultural domination, long contested in Telangana, is now challenged by the formation of the new state. Introduction In the extremely abundant literature available on caste, the concept of territory has been very little explored, though it is a richer and more complex notion than space and region, which have comparatively “Fieldwork for this research was funded by various grants and scholarships from the University of Paris-Nanterre, the Fondation Thiers (Institut de France), the Ecole Francaise e'Extréme-Orient (Pondicherry), the Centre for Social Stienees and Humanities (Delhi), and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICR). Aseminar version of this article was presented at a workshop organized by Alpa Shah and Jene Lerche in the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics in April 2014. Tam grateful to the discussants Barbara Harriss-White and Geert De [Neve for their comments, as well as two anonymous reviewers for this journal. owns rom p/n cnnsgn rors. Padres: 7219841134, on 828 386.2846 sucto sre Canbedge Corea of ese, aati st ostream corres eps e900 130287298 6000758