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The major steel towns built in the wake of the Second Five-Year Plan were to be “temples” to India’s industrial future and secular “modernity”; but soon they were desecrated by ethnic and communal violence. Focusing on two of them, this... more
The major steel towns built in the wake of the Second
Five-Year Plan were to be “temples” to India’s industrial
future and secular “modernity”; but soon they were
desecrated by ethnic and communal violence. Focusing
on two of them, this article shows that the extent of
the violence was markedly different, and asks “why?”.
Attention is drawn to the kind of ethnic mix in their
workforces, to their different experiences of “modernity”,
shop floor cultures and histories of displacement, and to
the different agendas of state governments and the way
they shaped civil society institutions.
Five-Year Plan were to be “temples” to India’s industrial
future and secular “modernity”; but soon they were
desecrated by ethnic and communal violence. Focusing
on two of them, this article shows that the extent of
the violence was markedly different, and asks “why?”.
Attention is drawn to the kind of ethnic mix in their
workforces, to their different experiences of “modernity”,
shop floor cultures and histories of displacement, and to
the different agendas of state governments and the way
they shaped civil society institutions.
New Delhi: Social Science Press. Forthcoming.
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An expanded version is available in book version from Sage Publications, New Delhi.
An expanded version is available in book version from Sage Publications, New Delhi.
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Anthropologists-as indeed their informants-often stress that gift exchange and commodity exchange are premised on fundamentally opposed principles. In Gregory's neat formulation, for example, gift exchange is seen (following Mauss) as... more
Anthropologists-as indeed their informants-often stress that gift exchange and commodity exchange are premised on fundamentally opposed principles. In Gregory's neat formulation, for example, gift exchange is seen (following Mauss) as presupposing the interdependence of the parties to the exchange and the inalienability of the gift; while commodity exchange is seen (following Marx) as presupposing the reciprocal independence of the transactors and the alienability of the commodity (Gregory 1982). This radical contrast between the principles which underlie the two types of exchange is commonly reported as being associated with an equally radical contrast in their moral evaluation. A particularly striking example is provided by Taussig's discussion (1980) of the folklore of the Christianised Black peasantry of the Cauca valley in Columbia. Some peasants who work as wage-labourers on the big sugar plantations are supposed to enter into a pact with the devil by which they increase their production and earn a better wage; but this can only be spent on consumer goods and luxuries, for such money is barren and cannot be productively invested-though some say that it can be made over to friends who can use it for productive ends. Even the cane fields cut by one who has contracted with the devil are rendered infertile. For this reason it is believed that devil contracts are made only by male wage-labourers. Peasants working their own plots would not be prepared to lay waste their land by such a deal, while the value women place on fertility and the nurture of children also relieves them of the temptation to make terms with the devil. The man who does succumb is destined for a painful and premature end. Taussig interprets all this as saying that capitalist relations of production are regarded by his informants as the work of the devil. They are an inherent evil, productive of death and barrenness. This privileged insight is possible because their victims still have one foot in a traditional 64
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This article was first published in 2005.
This article was first published in 2005.
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1999. In Ramachandra Guha and J. P. Parry (eds), Institutions and inequalities: essays in honour of André Béteille, pp. 129-69. Oxford University Press: New Delhi.
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1999. In J. P. Parry, J. Breman and K. Kapadia (eds), The worlds of Indian industrial labour, special issue of Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 33 (1&2): 107-40. (Also appears in the expanded Sage [New Delhi] hardback version of... more
1999. In J. P. Parry, J. Breman and K. Kapadia (eds), The worlds of Indian industrial labour, special issue of Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 33 (1&2): 107-40.
(Also appears in the expanded Sage [New Delhi] hardback version of the same).
(Also appears in the expanded Sage [New Delhi] hardback version of the same).
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1998. In W. James and N. J. Allen (eds) Marcel Mauss: a centenary tribute, pp. 151-72. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books
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Research Interests: Gift Exchange and India
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1989. (With C. J. Fuller), Anthropology Today, 5 (3): 11-14.
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1989. In (ed) Michel Feher et al. Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Vol.2, pp. 490-517. New York: Zone Books.
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Research Interests: India and Louis Dumont
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Contents Seed as Food 48 Ambiguous Fluids: Milk, Poison, and Fire 53 The Danger of Fluids 5 5 Stopping the Flow 5 7 Channeling the Flow 59 III Gods and Goddesses in Opposition 3 The Shazam Syndrome: The Banalization of the Hindu Gods 65 A... more
Contents Seed as Food 48 Ambiguous Fluids: Milk, Poison, and Fire 53 The Danger of Fluids 5 5 Stopping the Flow 5 7 Channeling the Flow 59 III Gods and Goddesses in Opposition 3 The Shazam Syndrome: The Banalization of the Hindu Gods 65 A The Dangers of Upward ...
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Research Interests: Engineering and Routledge
... Page 49. 'The Crisis of Corruption and'The Idea of India' though I often asked them directly ... Page 50. Jonathan Parry think true that the considerable sum supposedly required for a... more
... Page 49. 'The Crisis of Corruption and'The Idea of India' though I often asked them directly ... Page 50. Jonathan Parry think true that the considerable sum supposedly required for a post in the plant has a significant practical impact on the character of the work-force. ...
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... ABIM - An Annotated Bibliography of Indian Medicine. Non-renunciation: themes and interpretations of Hindu culture. -. Author(s): Madan, TN. Title: Non-renunciation: themes and interpretations of Hindu culture. Publication date: 1987.... more
... ABIM - An Annotated Bibliography of Indian Medicine. Non-renunciation: themes and interpretations of Hindu culture. -. Author(s): Madan, TN. Title: Non-renunciation: themes and interpretations of Hindu culture. Publication date: 1987. Checked: no. ...
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... In the chapters that follow, Christina Toren discusses how money is purified through ceremonial exchange in Fiji ... and economic change; MJ Sallnow examines precious metals in the moral economy of a peasant community in highland... more
... In the chapters that follow, Christina Toren discusses how money is purified through ceremonial exchange in Fiji ... and economic change; MJ Sallnow examines precious metals in the moral economy of a peasant community in highland Peru; and Olivia Harris considers the ...
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Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town is a classic in the social sciences. The rigour and richness of the ethnographic data of this book and its analysis is matched only by its literary style. This magnum opus of... more
Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town is a classic in the social sciences. The rigour and richness of the ethnographic data of this book and its analysis is matched only by its literary style. This magnum opus of 732 pages, an outcome of fieldwork covering twenty-one years, complete with diagrams and photographs, reads like an epic novel, difficult to put down. Professor Jonathan Parry looks at a context in which the manual workforce is divided into distinct social classes, which have a clear sense of themselves as separate and interests that are sometimes opposed. The relationship between them may even be one of exploitation; and they are associated with different lifestyles and outlooks, kinship and marriage practices, and suicide patterns. A central concern is with the intersection between class, caste, gender and regional ethnicity, with how class trumps caste in most contexts and with how classes have become increasingly structured as the ‘structuration’ of castes has declined. The wider theoretical ambition is to specify the general conditions under which the so-called ‘working class’ has any realistic prospect of unity
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1998. In W. James and N. J. Allen (eds) Marcel Mauss: a centenary tribute, pp. 151-72. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books
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The chapter describes and analyses panel data for six villages in Tamil Nadu from 1980 to 2005. It deals with agricultural change and soci-economic improvements.
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... Variation within each khanda is itself enormous; and there are three quite different versions of the preta-kalpa the part which relates to death and which my priestly informants unsuspectingly believe to be the complete and invariant... more
... Variation within each khanda is itself enormous; and there are three quite different versions of the preta-kalpa the part which relates to death and which my priestly informants unsuspectingly believe to be the complete and invariant work. ...
Research Interests: Philosophy and Intellect
Kashi (Kagi) is the pious Hindu’s name for Varanasi and is one of the seven sacred cities (puris) of India. This paper arises from fieldwork which focused primarily on the various groups of sacred specialists who earn their living on or... more
Kashi (Kagi) is the pious Hindu’s name for Varanasi and is one of the seven sacred cities (puris) of India. This paper arises from fieldwork which focused primarily on the various groups of sacred specialists who earn their living on or around the burning ghdts of the city (see Parry 1980); and represent a preliminary and tentative attempt to describe certain key aspects of its transcendental identity which the specialists promulgate in their dealings with the pilgrims and mourners they serve. My aim is to show how these sacred characteristics can be seen as a logically interconnected set. More specifically, I consider the relationship between the notions that Kashi is both the origin-point and a microcosm of the universe; that it stands outside space and time yet all space is contained within it; and that it provides for the attainment of all the goals of human existence (the purusarthas): in life for the realisation of dharma, artha, and kama andabove allin death for the realisation of moksa or mukti.
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Introduction - Jonathan P Parry The Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India - The Formal Sector - Jan Breman An Introductory Review Work and Resistance in the Jharia Coalfield - Dilip Simeon On Living in the Kal(i)yug -... more
Introduction - Jonathan P Parry The Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India - The Formal Sector - Jan Breman An Introductory Review Work and Resistance in the Jharia Coalfield - Dilip Simeon On Living in the Kal(i)yug - Christopher Pinney Notes from Nagda, Madhya Pradesh Lords of Labour - Jonathan Parry Working and Shirking in Bhilai Just Like a Family? Recalling Relations of Production in the Textile Industries of Surat and Bhiwandi, 1940-60 - Douglas E Haynes Hope and Despair - Chitra Joshi Textile Workers in Kanpur in 1937-38 and the 1990s Questions of Class - Rajnarayan Chandavarkar The General Strikes in Bombay, 1928-29 At the Margins - Samita Sen Women Workers in the Bengal Jute Industry The Badli System in Industrial Labour Recruitment - Arjan de Haan Managers' and Workers' Strategies in Calcutta's Jute Industry Artisan Labour in the Agra Footwear Industry - Peter Knorringa Continued Informality and Changing Threats Gender Ideologies and the Formation of...
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Exploring the intersection of state, religion and ethnicity, this article considers the opportunities for individual and collective advancement available to Muslim Gujjars in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh. Following the lives of... more
Exploring the intersection of state, religion and ethnicity, this article considers the opportunities for individual and collective advancement available to Muslim Gujjars in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh. Following the lives of three prominent members of the community a teacher, a political activist and a Maulvi it considers their respective orientations to the state and their relationships with their fellow Gujjars, to illustrate the different ways in which Gujjars have sought to transcend their marginal and subordinated position as an ethnic and religious minority. With state promoted schemes of affirmative action and reservation offering only limited opportunities for social and economic advancement, we see how Gujjars have responded to their continued marginalisation, first through political mobilisation as an ethnic group and, more recently, through the establishment of Islamic educational institutions and association with Tablighi Jama’at. This leads to an evaluation of...
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Introduction In 1986 Jonathan Parry’s ‘The Gift, the Indian Gift and the “Indian Gift”’ claimed to overturn conventional understandings of Marcel Mauss, by arguing that market societies most idealize the distinction between gifts and... more
Introduction In 1986 Jonathan Parry’s ‘The Gift, the Indian Gift and the “Indian Gift”’ claimed to overturn conventional understandings of Marcel Mauss, by arguing that market societies most idealize the distinction between gifts and commodities, and gift giving need not entail reciprocity. Based on an analysis of Hindu religious gifts, Parry proposed a broad framework for understanding how ideologies of exchange function in different economic and cosmological contexts. Thirty years later, this symposium considers the intellectual milieu in which The Indian Gift was written, and interrogates whether or not the work remains relevant to contemporary research and analysis. The symposium opens with a short introduction that provides some background to Parry’s essay and incorporates material from a recent interview with him. This is followed by critical comments on it by five influential thinkers on gift exchange: James Carrier, Chris Gregory, James Laidlaw, Marilyn Strathern and Yunxiang Yan. It ends with a short ‘revisionist’ note by Parry in which he tries to identify some of the limits of the Maussian approach for contemporary anthropology.
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Preface, Jonathan Parry, LSE 1. What Does It Mean To Be Alone? Catherine Allerton, LSE 2. How Do We Know Who We Are? Janet Carsten, Edinburgh University 3. What Is Going To Happen Next? Charles Stafford, LSE 4. Why, Exactly, Is The World... more
Preface, Jonathan Parry, LSE 1. What Does It Mean To Be Alone? Catherine Allerton, LSE 2. How Do We Know Who We Are? Janet Carsten, Edinburgh University 3. What Is Going To Happen Next? Charles Stafford, LSE 4. Why, Exactly, Is The World As It Is? Eva Keller, University of Zurich 5. How Does Ritual Matter? Fenella Cannell, LSE 6. What Makes People Work? Olivia Harris, LSE 7. What Kind Of Sex Makes People Happy? Laura Rival, Oxford University 8. How Do Women Give Birth? Michael Lambek, University of Toronto/LSE 9. What Happens After Death? Rita Astuti, LSE 10. How Does Genocide Happen? Michael Stewart, UCL 11. Why Are Some People Powerful? Luke Freeman, LSE 12. How Do We Know What Is True? Christina Toren, University of St Andrews Afterword