Touch: A Study of Caste attempts a fundamental break from the tradition of caste studies, using a version of phenomenology, structuralism and post-structuralism to give a fundamental description of touchability and untouchability in terms of a rhetoric and semantics of touch.
Written in minimalist style, it attempts to see if regulations on touchability can be seen as generalizable, and not seen merely as an Indian phenomenon. It also argues that, upon examination, several traditional sociological and political and moral categories do not prove to be useful for understanding touchability and untouchability.