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Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on India's Working Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2014

ANDREW SANCHEZ  and
CHRISTIAN STRÜMPELL
ANDREW SANCHEZ
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36, 06114 Halle, Germany Email: sanchez@eth.mpg.de
CHRISTIAN STRÜMPELL
Affiliation:
South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany Email: struempell@uni-heidelberg.de
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Abstract

With reference to original ethnographic and historical research on India, the papers collected in this forum suggest conceptual refinements that might re-centre the study of class in regional scholarship. Through discussions of class politics in industrial, construction and agricultural contexts, the authors interrogate the conceptual oppositions between stably employed fordist labour forces and the ‘working poor’ that have often constrained ethnographic and historical analyses of India's working classes. Inspired by Marxist historiography, this forum engages with the historically contingent emergence of Indian working classes through different types of labour, gender and ethnic struggles, and considers the complex political boundaries that are produced by such processes.

Type
FORUM: Class Matters: New Ethnographic Perspectives on the Politics of Indian Labour
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , September 2014 , pp. 1233 - 1241
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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