Dispossession without Development
Land Grabs in Neoliberal India
Price: 795.00 INR
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ISBN:
9780190915513
Publication date:
16/04/2018
Paperback
336 pages
Price: 795.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780190915513
Publication date:
16/04/2018
Paperback
336 pages
Michael Levien
Rights: OUP USA (INDIAN TERRITORY)
Michael Levien
Description
Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against land dispossession. Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound shift in regimes of dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, since the 1990s state governments have become land brokers for private real estate capital. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for a private Special Economic Zone, the book ethnographically illustrates the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism driving dispossession in contemporary India. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers in "Rajpura," the book meticulously documents the destruction of agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of rural labor, the spatial uneveness of infrastructure provision, and the dramatic consequences of real estate speculation for social inequality and village politics. Illuminating the structural underpinnings of land struggles in contemporary India, this book will resonate in any place where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.
About the Author
Michael Levien is assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. He has been researching and writing about rural land dispossession in India for the past fifteen years. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Michael Levien
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Map
Personae Dramatis
Preface: From Narmada to Rajpura
1. Introduction
2. Genesis of the Land Broker State
3. Rajpura
4. Dispossession
5. Differentiation by Speculation
6. Peasants in a Knowledge Economy
7. On the Margins of a World City
8. Politics After Dispossession
9. Conclusion: "Land Wars" and Development
Notes
References
Michael Levien
Michael Levien
Review
"This book offers a novel analysis of the mechanisms and consequences of economic dispossession. Based on long-term ethnographic immersion, Levien shows how peasants are maneuvered into giving up their land. This is a must read for anyone interested in development and markets-destined to become a classic of political economy."
- Michael Burawoy, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
"Levien shows precisely how state land acquisition in the name of development impoverishes the vulnerable, amplifies inequalities, and fractures collective identities. Amidst the self-congratulatory clamor around the story of India ascendant, when tall claims triumph over facts, this sober and compelling book is all the more valuable."
- Amita Baviskar, Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
"This is a masterful study of how macro forces are refracted through local dynamics of caste, class, and gender to produce inequality. It stands out not only as a seminal theoretical statement on the sociology of land dispossession, but also as critical to our understanding of the on-the-ground effects of development in contemporary India."
- Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Brown University
"Dispossession without Development is a tour de force, establishing a new benchmark for a critical sociology of postcolonial societies. Levien combines immersive ethnography with analytical rigor to show the devolution of the Indian developmental state into a land-broker. This is historically informed public sociology at its finest."
- Manu Goswami, Associate Professor of History, NYU
Description
Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against land dispossession. Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound shift in regimes of dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, since the 1990s state governments have become land brokers for private real estate capital. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for a private Special Economic Zone, the book ethnographically illustrates the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism driving dispossession in contemporary India. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers in "Rajpura," the book meticulously documents the destruction of agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of rural labor, the spatial uneveness of infrastructure provision, and the dramatic consequences of real estate speculation for social inequality and village politics. Illuminating the structural underpinnings of land struggles in contemporary India, this book will resonate in any place where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.
About the Author
Michael Levien is assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. He has been researching and writing about rural land dispossession in India for the past fifteen years. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Reviews
"This book offers a novel analysis of the mechanisms and consequences of economic dispossession. Based on long-term ethnographic immersion, Levien shows how peasants are maneuvered into giving up their land. This is a must read for anyone interested in development and markets-destined to become a classic of political economy."
- Michael Burawoy, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
"Levien shows precisely how state land acquisition in the name of development impoverishes the vulnerable, amplifies inequalities, and fractures collective identities. Amidst the self-congratulatory clamor around the story of India ascendant, when tall claims triumph over facts, this sober and compelling book is all the more valuable."
- Amita Baviskar, Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
"This is a masterful study of how macro forces are refracted through local dynamics of caste, class, and gender to produce inequality. It stands out not only as a seminal theoretical statement on the sociology of land dispossession, but also as critical to our understanding of the on-the-ground effects of development in contemporary India."
- Patrick Heller, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Brown University
"Dispossession without Development is a tour de force, establishing a new benchmark for a critical sociology of postcolonial societies. Levien combines immersive ethnography with analytical rigor to show the devolution of the Indian developmental state into a land-broker. This is historically informed public sociology at its finest."
- Manu Goswami, Associate Professor of History, NYU
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Map
Personae Dramatis
Preface: From Narmada to Rajpura
1. Introduction
2. Genesis of the Land Broker State
3. Rajpura
4. Dispossession
5. Differentiation by Speculation
6. Peasants in a Knowledge Economy
7. On the Margins of a World City
8. Politics After Dispossession
9. Conclusion: "Land Wars" and Development
Notes
References
