Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control,Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala

Abstract: Supported by the labour geography framework, I analyse how spatial practices of labour shape the economic geography of capitalism, by looking into a model not at a global but at a very local scale of organisation and showing its effectiveness while confronting social actors organised at global or extra‐local scales. Questioning global stereotypes on economic responses to globalisation, I argue that labour becomes actively involved in the very process of globalisation and the expansion of capital, empirically demonstrating the relevance of this in the globalisation literature. I deal with one region—Kerala—and processes in its labour markets, taking the case of apparel workers in an export‐promoting industrial park.     

Public Intervention and Poverty Alleviation: A Study of the Declining Incidence of Rural Poverty in Kerala,India

In the context of the continuing and lively debate on the estimates, trends and determinants of rural poverty in India, this article examines the sharp decline, since the late 1970s, in the incidence of rural poverty in the state of Kerala, well known for its record of social development. It is argued that, given the slow rate of growth of the Kerala economy in general and agriculture in particular since the mid-1970s, the ‘trickle down’ theory cannot explain the decline in poverty. Similarly, the fact that rural wages have increased faster than the consumer price index does not constitute a sufficient condition for crossing the poverty line. Expansion of state-directed programmes is seen to be the single most important determinant in reducing rural poverty. The effect of public intervention programmes is roughly estimated to be equal to one fifth of the consumption of rural labour households. The lesson of Kerala for poverty alleviation is that social protection expressed in terms of meeting the basic consumption requirements of the poor, especially the vulnerable among the poor, should be a necessary component of development policy. However, this is not a sufficient condition: there should also be a growth strategy which would provide adequate employment to all members of the labour force from the poorer sections of the population. The current line of official thinking in India, in the context of economic liberalization, is hardly conducive to such a strategy.     

Poverty in Transition: An Ethnographic Critique of Household Surveys in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Post-Soviet transitions have prompted a search for new policy tools and methods of data collection. The shift from universal welfare provision under the Soviet system to targeted assistance and poverty monitoring has stimulated a new interest in the measurement of living standards and poverty lines. This has promoted the use of quantitative techniques and sample surveys (household surveys, in particular) as privileged tools for the collection of policy-relevant information. This paper contends that survey techniques have particular limitations as research tools in an environment where local level case studies are scarce and where a host of new socio-economic processes are creating fundamental shifts in the landscape of social provision, redistribution and employment. These limitations are illustrated by drawing upon a household survey conducted by the author in four villages from two regions in Uzbekistan, Andijan and Kashkadarya, between October 1997 and August 1998. The ambiguities surrounding five basic concepts, those of household, employment, access to land, income and expenditure are discussed in detail, as are the changes in their contents and meanings in the context of transition. The gender differentiated outcomes of current changes and their possible implications are highlighted throughout the text. The conclusion suggests that Uzbekistan finds itself at an uneasy juncture where the policies deployed to ‘cushion’ the social costs of transition may reach the limits of their sustainability. A more contextually sensitive approach to the mechanisms that generate new forms of vulnerability and the use of qualitative and longitudinal methodologies are essential to an adequate monitoring of further changes.     

Poverty in Depth: a New Dialogue

This reflective piece draws together the themes and issues presented within the volume, exploring historic and contemporary definitions and attitudes towards poverty and their implications of the archaeological study of “slum” neighborhoods. It compares and contrasts the individual case studies from York and Manchester with investigations in America and Australia, drawing attention to the differences between them. Suggestions are made for future investigations, particularly in the potential for further comparative work at an international level.     

Surviving in Contemporary Kerala: Reflections from Recent Research in a Fisher Village

This article is based on mixed‐method field research in Adimalathura, a coastal village in south Kerala, India, which has been identified as one of the poorest communities in the area. Although this fishing community has been facing severe ecological challenges, including massive resource depletion, it has been able to put up stiff resistance to impending dispossession in the face of a large port project actively promoted by the government, most major political parties and globalized capital. This article traces the history of public action and work in Adimalathura since the early 20th century, and reflects on its significance in the context of the present resistance. It examines the role of women in bolstering the community in times of severe challenges to men's livelihoods, and highlights the importance of women's provisioning work. Ultimately, the author cautions against exaggerating community strength and the capacities of the women even when they are able to utilize available resources competently.     

From Demographic Transition to Fertility Boom and Bust: Iran in the 1980s and 1990s

Although it is widely recognized that demographic transition is not an uninterrupted process, demographers and population economists have treated short‐term swings in fertility with a measure of curiosity. Iran's experience of population growth after the Revolution in 1979 points to a double paradox of a steep and unprecedented surge in population growth in the 1980s followed by a swift restoration of fertility decline in the 1990s. Both periods have been characterized by extensive socio‐economic and institutional changes combined with radical and far‐reaching sways in Iran's post‐revolutionary population policy. This article applies standardized decomposition analysis to separate out and quantify the proximate components of change in the crude birth rate during these two fertility ‘boom’ and ‘bust’ phases. The aim is to ascertain to what extent structural/demographic or behavioural factors can explain the dynamics of change in fertility and population growth in Iran since the late 1970s. Our findings point to a hitherto neglected role of population momentum in initiating the ‘Islamic baby boom’ as well as a more limited role for population policy in explaining the genesis(rather than the momentum) of both boom and bust phases.     

The Possibility of Studying Landforms by Means of Digital Computers

The author proposes a digital code that would enable a computer to recognize landforms by matching the code of a given form against standard patterns stored in the computer's memory. This would represent automation of the first stage of compilation of geomorphic and special-purpose maps in which the general character of the surface relief of an area and its spatial distribution must be determined.     

Fertility decline in rural China: a comparative analysis

Many models have been proposed to explain both the rapidity of China's fertility decline after the 1960s and the differential timing of the decline in different places. In particular, scholars argue over whether deliberate policies of fertility control, institutional changes, or general modernization factors contribute most to changes in fertility behavior. Here the authors adopt an ethnographically grounded behavioral-institutional approach to analyze qualitative and quantitative data from three different rural settings: Xiaoshan County in Zhejiang (East China), Ci County in Hebei, (North China), and Yingde County in Guangdong (South China). The authors show that no one set of factors explain differential timing by a combination of differences in social-cultural environments (e.g. spread of education, reproductive ideologies, and gender relations) and politico-economic conditions (e.g. economic development, birth planning campaigns, and collective systems of labor organization) during the early phases of the fertility decline.     

Los Angeles Pentecostals: The Dislocation of a People and the Birth of a Movement

By examining the geographical, economic, religious, and social changes experienced by those who became Pentecostals, and by comparing the religious and cultural backgrounds of native and migrant Angelinos in the 1920s and 1930s with the Pentecostal message, this article demonstrates that several factors contributed to the receptivity of those who lived in the Los Angeles region. First, a deep sense of dislocation predisposed a number of white Angelinos to religious realignment. Next, African Americans were just emerging from one of the most trying times in their long history of suffering, and that suffering had led to millennial expectations that the Pentecostal movement seemed to presage. Then, the Pentecostal message influenced the direction of that realignment by appealing both to those expectations and to other specific cultural characteristics common to many Angelinos. Finally, the article shows that the Pentecostal experience provided a sense of empowerment that some in the movement found transformative.     

The Possibility of Shamanism: A Genealogy of Anthropological Appropriations

This piece adopts a genealogical approach to the emergence of “neo-Shamanism” as a “spiritual” practice. It argues that the work of Freud and Durkheim collapsed the dichotomy between “primitive” and “civilized” which characterized nineteenth-century evolutionist anthropology. Neither Freud nor Durkheim embraced the consequences of this collapse, and while Bataille attempted to do so, his application of “Shamanism” to modern self-governance was constrained by the terms of the Freudian/Durkheimian framework. Jung did embrace this collapse, positing a universal equivalence between religious forms and psychological processes, and this epistemic shift permitted his interlocutors, Levi-Strauss and Eliade, to inaugurate the discursive frameworks which made “neo-Shamanism” thinkable as an ethical practice for contemporary Westerners. Analyses which suggest that “neo-Shamanisms” are rediscoveries of a primal “spirituality” write from within this framework, neglecting the contingency of historical change, the creativity of anthropological appropriations and the politics of knowledge.