Politics as Negotiation: Changing Caste Norms in Rural India

Diego Maiorano, Suruchi Thapar‐Björkert and Hans Blomkvist

Development and Change, 2022, vol. 53, issue 1, 217-248

Abstract: This article analyses processes of social change in rural India through an ethnographic analysis of everyday politics in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Its main argument is that even if overt resistance or ‘noisy’ collective action by the poor is rarely seen, a great deal of social change is occurring through a subtle ‘politics of negotiation’ whereby poor, low‐caste agricultural labourers are questioning social norms that underpin their oppression. These negotiations are structured around labour relations and caste norms, which are so inextricably intertwined that a modification of one set of ‘rules’ necessarily has an impact on the other. The processes of democratization, the erosion of patron–client relations, the spread of education, an enduring agrarian crisis aggravated by climate change and the availability of alternative employment opportunities for the poor are chipping away at the dominance of India's rural elite. This continuous negotiating process between the (upper‐caste) landed elite and the (lower‐caste) labouring classes is non‐confrontational and while it would be ambitious to suggest that it overturns the existing power relations, it nonetheless challenges and modifies them in a way that results in progressive social change.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12654

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:1:p:217-248

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0012-155X

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Development and Change from International Institute of Social Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().