Contested Capital

Rural Middle Classes in India

Inbunden, Engelska, 2020

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The expansion and transformation of Asian economies is producing class structures, roles and identities that could not easily be predicted from other times and places. The industrialisation of the countryside, in particular, generates new, rural middle classes which straddle the worlds of agriculture and industry in complex ways. Their class position is improvised on the basis of numerous influences and opportunities, and is in constant evolution. Enormous though its total population is, meanwhile, the rural middle class remains invisible to most scholars and policymakers. Contested Capital is the first major work to shed light on an emerging transnational class comprised of many hundreds of millions of people. In India, the 'middle class' has become one of the key categories of economic analysis and developmental forecasting. The discussion suffers from one major oversight: it assumes that the middle class resides uniquely in the cities. As this book demonstrates, however, more than a third of India's middle class is rural, and 17 per cent of rural households belong to the middle class. The book brings this vast and dynamic population into view, so confronting some of the most crucial neglected questions of the contemporary global economy.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2020-12-03
Mått165 x 236 x 25 mm
Vikt610 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor322
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781108836333

Tillhör följande kategorier

Sociologi inom Samhalle och politik
Nationalekonomi inom Ekonomi och ledarskap
Ekonomiska system inom Ekonomi och ledarskap
Sociala grupper och identitet inom Samhalle och politik
Makroekonomi inom Ekonomi och ledarskap
Ekonomisk politik inom Ekonomi och ledarskap
Mikroekonomi inom Ekonomi och ledarskap
Statsvetenskap och politisk teori inom Samhalle och politik

List of figures and maps; List of tables; List of abbreviations; Foreword Barbara Harriss-White; Acknowledgments; Introduction. The problem of the 'rural middle class(es)'; 1. Trajectory of the Indian middle class: its size and geographical variations; 2. In search of the rural middle classes: from village stratification to rural household variations; 3. Marx: capital, labour and the rural middle classes; 4. Weber: marketable capital, status and the rural middle classes; 5. Bourdieu: cultural capital, self-perception and the middle-class identity in rural India; Conclusion. Understanding the rural middle classes; Appendices; References; Index.

'Aslany analyses the making of an Indian rural middle class, at the intersection of caste, class and status by combining quantitative and ethnographic methods. Her book is a rather unique contribution to the study of 'rurbanisation' in India. Comparing two villages of Pune district, it shows how their inhabitants depend less and less on agriculture, but commute to nearby factories. A great work on an understudied key subject!' Christophe Jaffrelot