Agricultural Reason in the Shadow of Subsistence Capitalism: A Rural Ontology from Western IndiaThis collection of essays by Arjun Appadurai based on his fieldwork in rural Maharashtra, India, in the early 1980s is one of the few anthropological treatments of agricultural reasoning. In conversation with agronomists, economists, and development anthropologists, the essays explore the ways agricultural technologies, changes in how surface wells are dug and managed, the provision and sharing of food and management of time, issues of scale in studying rural lives, and how local knowledge is formed and transformed reveal the distinctive character of rural Indian sociality. Locating these features in the context of “subsistence capitalism,” Appadurai draws our attention to the importance of relational practices and the pull of autonomy. These essays offer a close look at an agrarian society at the pivotal moment of its encounter with capitalist transformation and study ideas of measurement, sociality, and independence. |
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acres aggregation agrarian agricultural agronomic discourse amount analysis anthropological anthropologists Appadurai approximation Bardhan bhakri bullocks cash crops caste chapter commercial agriculture commercial crops complex consumption context cooperation coriander cultigens cultural dietary discussed domestic economists electrified epistemological especially essays ethnographic ethos families farmers of Vadi farming fertilizer fieldwork forms frequently grain important India involved irrigated irrigated land knowledge Kunbi labor landholdings large number large-scale surveys lentils lineage lives macro Maharashtra Maratha means methodological micro Mumbai nakshatras onions percent plots poorer farmers problems production Pune Pune district puran poli qualitative quantitative rainfall regard relations relationship ritual Rudra rural economic change rural India Saswad season share shareholders shift small farmers small-scale social sorghum sort South Asia specific Srinivasan standards subsistence capitalism sugarcane T. N. Srinivasan technical techniques terminologies of measurement tion traditional transactions urban variety vegetables village level Western India yield