The anthropology of urban migration in South Asia has emphasized the plight of marginalized people and conflicts over public space. But the precarity of agriculture and inadequacy of basic state services has increasingly compelled rural middle-class families in Bihar, India, to establish a foothold in the country's booming cities. Because they aim to remain located in both the urban and rural spheres, urban migration reconfigures kinship relations so that the joint family household becomes a non-cohabitating entity. Constructing a house in the city depends on rural consumption practices that are distinct from the individual-oriented consumerism of the urban middle class. The gr̥ h praveś, the Hindu house consecration ceremony and feast, legitimizes this transition. The hosts negotiate their hybrid identity as urban migrants through the event's food practices. For instance, adulteration scandals have prompted concerns about provisioning milk in the city. The consumption of milk-based specialty foods during the gr̥ h praveś reflects the family's effort to deploy nourishing, familiar foods that reassert ties to their village community while also signaling aspirations to prosperity and a modern, cosmopolitan identity. Moments of ritual excess extend overflowing hospitality to guests human and divine, providing material proof of the family's unity and ambitions. [urban migration, feasting, house construction, ritual, kinship] RESUMEN La antropología de la migración urbana en Asia meridional ha enfatizado la situación difícil de las personas marginadas y los conflictos sobre el espacio público. Pero la precariedad de la agricultura y lo inadecuado de los servicios estatales básicos han forzado crecientemente a las familias de clase media en Bihar, India, a establecer un punto de apoyo en las ciudades en auge del país. Debido a que tienen como objetivo permanecer ubicados tanto en la esfera urbana como rural, la migración urbana reconfigura las relaciones de parentesco de manera que el hogar familiar conjunto llega a ser una entidad no cohabitante. Construir una casa en la ciudad necesita prácticas de consumo determinadas por los hábitos rurales y son distintos del consumismo orientado al individuo de la clase media urbana. El gr̥ h praveś, la celebración y ceremonia de consagración de la casa hindú, legitima esta transición. Los anfitriones negocian su identidad híbrida como migrantes urbanos a través de las prácticas alimentarias del evento. Por ejemplo, los escándalos de adulteración han suscitado preocupaciones sobre el aprovisionamiento de leche en la ciudad. El consumo de alimentos de especialidad basados en leche durante el gr̥ h praveś refleja el esfuerzo de la familia para utilizar, alimentos familiares, nutritivos que reafirman lazos a su comunidad del poblado mientras también indicando aspiraciones a la prosperidad e identidad moderna, cosmopolita.Momentos de exceso ritual extienden la hospitalidad desbordante a los invitados humanos y divinos, proveyendo
Ethnographic fieldwork in Bihar, India, reveals paradoxes at the core of contemporary agriculture. Rural people view growing their own food as a crucial bulwark against the vicissitudes of the market but prioritize off‐farm employment to meet rising household expenses. Landowners who cultivate crops often refer to themselves as unemployed while complaining about a lack of laborers to work the land. They do not always refer to themselves as farmers, while many people who do not call themselves farmers nevertheless perform farm work and rely on agriculture as a livelihood. These paradoxes point to the fuzziness and incoherence surrounding the term “farmer” as both an identity and analytical concept. Ideologies of agricultural labor are shaped by different subject positions and social categories, such as caste, gender, and age. The fractured, fluid, and contingent nature of agriculture, in which people move between different locations and identities, provides the grounds for problematizing scholarly categories of agricultural labor—categories like farmer, landlord, peasant, sharecropper, and laborer. The on‐the‐ground realities of agriculture necessitate reframing the conceptual language to attend to the specificity and materiality of labor in particular sites and moments while also foregrounding the ambivalence, vulnerability, and incompleteness that inheres in agricultural labor.
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