Negotiating Order: An Empirical Investigation of Variation in Caste Discrimination in Gujarat, India by Priyamvada Trivedi A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in The University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Christian Davenport, Chair Professor Ronald Inglehart Professor Rory McVeigh, University of Notre Dame Associate Professor Brian Min Associate Professor Kentaro Toyama Priyamvada Trivedi
[email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6565-2737 © Priyamvada Trivedi 2018 DEDICATION Will H. Moore ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my committee members – Christian Davenport, Brian Min, Ronald Inglehart, Kentaro Toyama and Rory McVeigh – for their support and encouragement in finishing this dissertation. Christian, thank you for giving me the freedom to explore questions from multiple perspectives. While it contributed to me getting lost several times, I think, it made me a better researcher. During the past few years I have asked myself repeatedly about how can we truly know something. Knowing that we can’t made me question the entire enterprise but then you have been a living example of doing our best to know something. Because doing our best is all we can do. Thank you for providing me opportunities to travel, meet people (who would change my life in ways I could never imagine) and build friendships. But most importantly thank you for helping me see that what makes us and our research is our community or like you say “our village”. I will endeavor to do the same wherever I go. Brian, thank you for having faith in me when I had none.