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Beyond the prism of rural to urban and voluntary-involuntary in India: A class focused theory of migration
, Prithwiraj Saha
Published in
2019
Volume: 22
   
Issue: 4
Pages: 807 - 834
Abstract
Abstract The article seeks to develop a class focused theory of development induced internal migration in the context of India's economic transition. Through a critical interrogation of the hegemonic development approach, it (a) problematizes the norms and telos that underscore a presumption of migration as an inevitable journey from the rural to urban as part of the logic of capitalist development and (b) showcases the novelty and importance of class understood as a process of surplus labor and the epistemo-ontology of overdetermination in disinterring India's migration in the decentered-disaggregated class related space, elucidating heterogeneous flows and streams of migration of India's working population. Furthermore, we deploy this class focused approach to forward a rethought rendition of primitive accumulation that destabilizes the de-politicized category of ?displacement? induced migration and binary classification of voluntary-involuntary migration as presented in the mainstream development literature. Instead, following capitalist development, we highlight the political economy of expropriation of space and livelihoods and of force and violence, in shaping the multi-varied migration processes of India's working populace and their role in reconstituting the class structure of Indian economy.
About the journal
JournalJournal of Labor and Society
ISSN2471-4607