Three deltas: accumulation and poverty in rural Burma, Bengal and South India
In: Indo-Dutch studies on development alternatives 8
28 Ergebnisse
Sortierung:
In: Indo-Dutch studies on development alternatives 8
In: Notebooks: the journal for studies on power, Band 2, Heft 2, S. 189-199
ISSN: 2666-7185
Abstract
Multi-species history, environmental humanities, Anthropocene studies and robotics all challenge core notions underlying labour history, such as 'work', 'labour' and 'worker'. The note poses three questions about 'non-human labour' with a view to strengthening the dialogue between labour historians and practitioners of these new scholarly fields.
In: Critical Asian studies, Band 55, Heft 1, S. 105-135
ISSN: 1472-6033
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 50, Heft 1, S. 75-117
ISSN: 1469-8099
AbstractIn 1971 a war led to the creation of Bangladesh. Instantly three narratives sprang up: the war as a national triumph, the war as betrayal and shame, and the war as a glorious campaign. Today more layered interpretations are superseding these 'first-generation narratives'. Taking the case of insurgents from neighbouring India who, against their will, became embroiled in the war, this article seeks to contribute to 'second-generation narratives' that challenge the historiographical apportioning of blame and the national/ethnic framing of the conflict. The article uses hitherto-unpublished photographs from private collections to demonstrate how the war for the liberation of Mizoram (India) and that for the liberation of Bangladesh became entangled. Jointly they produced a 'war within a war' that unsettles common assumptions about both these struggles.
In: International review of social history, Band 60, Heft 1, S. 73-95
ISSN: 1469-512X
AbstractIn scholarly writings, the term "agrarian labour" is used variously. It can refer to a very specific set of productive activities – the cultivation of crops and animal husbandry – but it can also have the much broader connotation of rural or non-urban labour. These different uses can be confusing, especially in comparative research. This paper starts from the French comparative agriculture school and its conceptualization of three nested scales of analysis – the "cropping system", the "activity system", and the "agrarian system". It tests these ideas in a comparison of labour employed in the production of indigo dye in two colonial systems (British India and the Dutch East Indies). The article concludes that this approach helps counteract monocausal explanations of labour relations in terms of agro-environmental determinants, the force of colonial capitalism, or local work cultures. It also promotes agriculture-sensitive readings of social transformations by comparing social orders that comprise both agricultural and non-agricultural labour relations.
In: International review of social history, Band 51, Heft S14, S. 229
ISSN: 1469-512X
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 36, Heft 2
ISSN: 1469-8099
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 36, Heft 2, S. 341-374
ISSN: 0026-749X
In: International review of social history, Band 46, Heft 3, S. 393-421
ISSN: 1469-512X
Partition, the break-up of colonial India in 1947, has been the subject of considerable serious historical research, but almost exclusively from two distinctive perspectives: as a macropolitical event; or as a cultural and personal disaster. Remarkably, very little is known about the socioeconomic impact of Partition on different localities and individuals. This exploratory essay considers how Partition affected working people's livelihood and labour relations. The essay focuses on the northeastern part of the subcontinent, where Partition created an international border separating East Bengal – which became East Pakistan, then Bangladesh – from West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, and other regions which joined the new state of India. Based largely on evidence contained in "low-level" state records, the author explores how labour relations for several categories of workers in the new borderland changed during the period of the late 1940s and 1950s.
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 26, Heft 1, S. 95-128
ISSN: 1469-8099
This paper deals with socio-cultural innovation in the hills of southeastern Bangladesh. Outsiders have always been struck by the ethnic diversity of this area. The literature—written mainly by British civil servants, Bengali men of letters, and European anthropologists—presents a picture of twelve distinct 'tribes', all practising swidden or shifting agriculture, locally known asjhumcultivation. In addition, there are Bengali immigrants who do not engage in swidden cultivation.
In: Modern Asian studies, Band 26, Heft 1, S. 95-128
ISSN: 0026-749X
In: Development and change, Band 19, Heft 2, S. 301-325
ISSN: 1467-7660
In: The Indian economic and social history review: IESHR, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 139-173
ISSN: 0973-0893
In: Bulletin of concerned Asian scholars, Band 13, Heft 4, S. 28-34
In: Asian Borderlands
Flows and Frictions in Trans-Himalayan Spaces traces movements and connections in a region known for its formidable obstacles to mobility. Eight original essays and a conceptual introduction engage with questions of networks and interconnection between people across a bordered landscape. Mobility among the extremely varied ecologies of south-western China, Myanmar and north-eastern India, with their rugged terrain, high mountains, monsoon-fed rivers and marshy lowlands, is certainly subject to friction. But today, harsh political realities have created hard borders and fractured this trans-Himalayan terrain. However, the closely researched chapters in this book demonstrate that these borders have not prevented an abundance of movements, connections and flows. Mobility has always coexisted with friction here, but this coexistence has been unsettled, giving this space its historical shape and its contemporary dynamism. Introducing the concept of the 'corridor' as an analytical framework, this collection investigates mobility and flows in this unique socio-political landscape.