Conjugated oppression within contemporary capitalism: class, caste, tribe and agrarian change in India

Abstract

Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in the bypassing of agrarian transition-led industrialisation and classic proletarianisation, and class-for-itself class struggles are rare. Drawing on analyses of class relations, racism and other forms of social oppression, this contribution explores how processes of 'conjugated oppression' are central to the spread of contemporary capitalism. The focus is on India and on how the co-constitution of class relations and social oppression based on caste, tribe, gender and region is entrenching Dalits and Adivasis at the bottom of social and economic hierarchies. The analysis has deep-seated consequences for how we think about political struggles, in this case ones that foreground caste and tribe and focus on both labour and land.

Agrarian social movements: The absurdly difficult but not impossible agenda of defeating right‐wing populism and exploring a socialist future

“…19 Sanders and Trump are ideological opposites for some of their core groups-"alt-right" for Trump, socialists for Sanders-but they have common supporters and sympathizers, and the basis of the latter, at least in the beginning, is not their ideological stances, but the immediate, concrete issues addressed, such as factory closures amid corporate migration outside 17 For example, Baud and Rutten (2004); Baviskar (1999); Clapp and Isakson (2018); Edelman (1999); Fairbairn (2014); Hall (2011); Holt-Giménez (2017); Isakson (2014); Li (2007Li ( , 2014; Martinez-Alier (2014); McMichael (2008); Moore (1967); Newell and Wheeler (2006); Patel (2009); Peluso (1992); Peluso and Lund (2011); Ribot and Peluso (2003); Scoones (2015); Scott (1976Scott ( , 1985; Shanin (1972); Tsikata and Yaro (2014); Weis (2007); Wolford (2010). 18 And as some more recent studies point out, such as Bernstein (2018), Bernstein et al (2018); Cousins, Dubb, Hornby, and Mtero (2018); Lerche and Shah (2018); Levien et al (2018); White (2018). 19 For elaboration and insiders' accounts, see Sanders (2016) and Bond and Exley (2016).…”

Circular Migration and Precarity: Perspectives from Rural Bihar

“…The immediate crisis of migration-the exodus of migrant workers-stems from a deeper, structural crisis of migration in India. This can be seen from a Marxist analytical framework where processes of capitalist accumulation have led to surplus extraction and super-exploitation of labour (Jain and Sharma 2019;Lerche and Shah 2018). Migration, crucial for capitalist growth and labour mobility, far from being voluntary, is viewed as a compulsion generated in the interest of capital (Shah and Lerche 2020;Vijay 2005).…”

Agrarian class struggle and state formation in post‐colonial Pakistan, 1959–1974: Contingencies of Mazdoor Kisan Raj

“…In this case, the landlordtenant contradiction was determined by and determined how contradictions in the economic and ideological-cultural levels articulated with each other, that is, the commodification of labour on the basis of tribe. See Stuart Hall (1980), and for a more recent discussion on co-constitution of class and tribe, see Lerche and Shah (2018). 5 A power bloc represents a coalition of classes and groups possessing or seeking state power (Gramsci, 1971;Poulantzas, 2008).…”