Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia

Plantations, Proletarians and Peasants in Colonial Asia
Author: Henry Berstein
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2019-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 131784520X

This volume originated in a conference on 'Capitalist Plantations in Colonial Asia', held at the Centre for Asian Studies of the University of Amsterdam and Free University of Amsterdam in September 1990. The contributions to this collection focus on the production of rubber, sugar, tea, and several less strategic plantation crops, in colonial Indochina, Java, Malaya, the Philippines, India, Ceylon, Mauritius and Fiji (although geographically anomalous, both the latter are included because of the centrality to their sugar plantations of indentured labour from India).

In the Shadows of the Tropics

In the Shadows of the Tropics
Author: James S. Duncan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2016-05-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1317117735

In this original work James Duncan explores the transformation of Ceylon during the mid-nineteenth century into one of the most important coffee growing regions of the world and investigates the consequent ecological disaster which erased coffee from the island. Using this fascinating case study by way of illustration, In the Shadows of the Tropics reveals the spatial unevenness and fragmentation of modernity through a focus on modern governmentality and biopower. It argues that the practices of colonial power, and the differences that race and tropical climates were thought to make, were central to the working out of modern governmental rationalities. In this context, the usefulness of Foucault's notions of biopower, discipline and governmentality are examined. The work contributes an important rural focus to current work on studies of governmentality in geography and offers a welcome non-state dimension by considering the role of the plantation economy and individual capitalists in the lives and deaths of labourers, the destabilization of subsistence farming and the aggressive re-territorialization of populations from India to Ceylon.

Labour in Southeast Asia

Labour in Southeast Asia
Author: Becky Elmhirst
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2004-05-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1135791376

In seeking to provoke debate, the book reveals the variety of experiences evident in countries and regions marked by capitalist and (post) socialist regulatory frameworks, and contrasting labour regimes, histories and cultures. The contributions show the importance of critically examining both the complex nature of global-local links and the particular ways economic processes are refracted through culture and locality in southeast Asia. Clustered around the themes of labour regimes, labour processes, labour mobility and labour communities, the essays show how economic development is not only shaped by market forces but is also interlocked in systems of meaning."--Jacket

Women Plantation Workers

Women Plantation Workers
Author: Shobita Jain
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 1000324273

This pioneering collection of essays brings together a description and analysis of women workers and the socio-economic systems of plantations world-wide. The plantation remains a formidable force in many areas of the world and new trends towards tree farming call for further examination of its agriculture. Women have, in the past, constituted a considerable precentage of the work force in this milieu, and continue to do so.Using specific case studies of historical and contemporary plantations, an account is given of the history of female labour, focusing on the colonial and post-colonial eras. The essays examine reasons for women's degraded status and emphasize, in particular, issues relating to migrant workers.The gradual move away from traditional family roles is, to some extent, reflected in variations in the position of the female plantation worker. However, where inequalities in class and status continue to characterize plantation life, capitalist and patriarchal control prevails.Both chilling and bracing, the sufferings of plantation labourers may seem remote to most of us, but they are still very much part of the contemporary world. Providing a close insight into the lives of the female protagonists, these essays have given an opportunity for their stories to be heard.

Global Capital and Peripheral Labour

Global Capital and Peripheral Labour
Author: Ravi Raman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2010-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1135196575

This book presents a historical account of plantations in India in the context of the modern world economy. It brings history up to the present, thereby showing how history can assist in explaining contemporary conditions and trends. The author focuses on labour and economic development problems and uses the World Systems theory so as to demonstrate the practical utility of the theory and its limitations as a guide to historical research. Based on extensive archival research, the book interprets the dynamics of plantation capitalism by focusing on the work, life and struggle of the dalits on plantations in colonial and post-colonial South India as they evolved from the mid-19th century. It argues that these elements of the plantation life-world were fashioned by the specific characteristics of the workers' location within the capitalist world-economy, the then prevailing local social structure and the scheme of disciplining to which the workers were subjected to. Treating the relations among various social forces – the planting communities, the oppressed communities (dalits in India), the regional and national state, and the Imperial regime, this book fills a gap in academic literature on capitalism, economic development, and globalization.

The End of the Peasantry in Southeast Asia

The End of the Peasantry in Southeast Asia
Author: R.E. Elson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2016-01-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1349254576

This book analyses the changing context and conditions of production and livelihood amongst Southeast Asia's peasants since the beginning of the nineteenth century. It argues that with demographic growth and the nineteenth century development of great global markets based on small-scale production, the size and economic significance of peasantries throughout the region was magnified. However, such changes brought with them new forces - stronger states, more regular legal systems, a revolution in communications, intensive commercialisation - which themselves worked to undermine the foundations of peasant society and, eventually, to transform peasants into farmers, workers and citizens.

New Farmers' Movements in India

New Farmers' Movements in India
Author: Tom Brass
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2014-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135203148

The essays in this collection focus on the reasons for and background to the emergence during the 1980s of the new farmers' movements in India. In addition to a more general consideration of the economic, political and theoretical dimensions of this development, there are case studies which cover the farmer's movements in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.

Contagion and Enclaves

Contagion and Enclaves
Author: Nandini Bhattacharya
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1846318297

Contagion and Enclaves examines the social history of medicine across two intersecting British enclaves in the major tea-producing region of colonial India: the hill station of Darjeeling and the adjacent tea plantations of North Bengal. Focusing on the establishment of hill sanatoria and other health care facilities and practices against the backdrop of the expansion of tea cultivation and labor migration, it tracks the demographic and environmental transformation of the region and the critical role race and medicine played in it, showing that the British enclaves were essential and distinctive sites of the articulation of colonial power and economy.