Fwd: politics of dispossession talk
JC CHEN
Lecture | April 19 | 5-7 p.m. | Stephens Hall, 10 (CSAS Conf. Room)
Speaker: Michael Levien, Ph.D Candidate, Department of Sociology
Sponsor: Center for South Asia Studies
The neoliberal era has seen a proliferation of so-called “land wars”
across rural India. The attempts of state governments to forcibly
acquire increasing amounts of land from farmers for Special Economic
Zones, factories, real estate projects, and increasingly privatized
infrastructure have prompted widespread farmer resistance. This
resistance, I argue, is cumulatively posing a significant challenge to
neoliberal capitalism in India. However, existing social science
theories of political agency are inadequate for capturing the
specificity of this politics of dispossession. I draw on two years of
ethnographic research on Special Economic Zones, and dispossession
struggles more generally, to argue that the dispossession of land
creates a distinct type of politics and I try to illuminate its common
features and main sources of variation. I conclude with some
reflections on the likely trajectories of India's 'land wars.'
Michael Levien is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at
the University of California-Berkeley. His dissertation, based partly
on an ethnography of a Special Economic Zone in Rajasthan, examines
the political economy of land dispossession in India.
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Take public transportation if possible or arrive early to secure your
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Event Contact: 510-642-3608