Seminar: Social reproduction, agrarian crisis, and work in rural India: Lessons from Punjab
DGES is excited to host Dr. Smita Ramnarain from the University of Rhode Island, who will speak on "Social reproduction, agrarian crisis, and work in rural India: Lessons from Punjab."
The presentation will discuss findings from multiple rounds of field work in rural India – specifically in the state of Punjab – carried out over a period of several years, detailing the impacts of a long-standing agrarian crisis in the Indian subcontinent, and its consequent impacts on the social reproduction of rural families, distinguished by class, caste, and gender.
The presentation argues for a greater consideration of non-waged and reproductive labor, especially in the context of the Global South and proposes understanding work through an expanded lens of social reproduction.Time-use data gathered from rural households in Punjab bolster the case for incorporating the labor of social reproduction as a significant axis to obtain a full picture of the lives and livelihoods of rural families in Punjab.
The second part of the presentation will also unpack the pivotal role of this labor of social reproduction in the recent farmers’ protests in India and examines its potential to coalesce different and disparate struggles against capital. While the success of the farmers’ protests was promising, unresolved questions around rural inequality and the differentiated ways in which the crisis of social reproduction in the context of a generalized agrarian crisis has impacted rural families across class and caste must be taken seriously for any kind of sustained anti-capitalist struggle.
This event is co-sponsored by UofL's Departments of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research.
