Dik Roth and Linden Vincent
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780198082927
- eISBN:
- 9780199082247
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198082927.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Science, Technology and Environment
This chapter discusses the politics of groundwater markets and its interrelation with social differentiation and class–caste relations. Based on an intensive social anthropological study of a village ...
More
This chapter discusses the politics of groundwater markets and its interrelation with social differentiation and class–caste relations. Based on an intensive social anthropological study of a village in north Gujarat, it investigates the factors that shaped unrestrained use of groundwater and the responses of various social groups. These factors range from the issues of access and control over productive resources such as land and groundwater, a local ecology that endorsed groundwater development and institutions like groundwater markets, and sharecropping that mediated the change process. The chapter uses a triadic framework of agrarian institutions, ecological variables in agrarian change, and the domain of the state in influencing nature and society. Further, it locates the context of the study in the larger political economy of Gujarat where dominant classes have determined differential class-based access to productive resources through sources of legitimacy and power.Less
This chapter discusses the politics of groundwater markets and its interrelation with social differentiation and class–caste relations. Based on an intensive social anthropological study of a village in north Gujarat, it investigates the factors that shaped unrestrained use of groundwater and the responses of various social groups. These factors range from the issues of access and control over productive resources such as land and groundwater, a local ecology that endorsed groundwater development and institutions like groundwater markets, and sharecropping that mediated the change process. The chapter uses a triadic framework of agrarian institutions, ecological variables in agrarian change, and the domain of the state in influencing nature and society. Further, it locates the context of the study in the larger political economy of Gujarat where dominant classes have determined differential class-based access to productive resources through sources of legitimacy and power.
Nilotpal Kumar
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199466856
- eISBN:
- 9780199087402
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466856.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Social Psychology and Interaction
This chapter introduces Anantapur and its semi-arid ecology that present inherent risks for cultivation in the district. Whilst the landholding pattern in the district has tended to move towards an ...
More
This chapter introduces Anantapur and its semi-arid ecology that present inherent risks for cultivation in the district. Whilst the landholding pattern in the district has tended to move towards an egalitarian miniaturization, access to groundwater seems to have grown more iniquitous. Farmers across classes in the local area have been attempting to switch over from cultivating groundnut under rain-fed conditions alongside livestock rearing to horticulture by extracting groundwater, colonizing poor quality landholdings, and at times, by withdrawing from livestock rearing. This ‘restructuring’ of production has led to iniquitous and non-sustainable mining of groundwater. A detailed analysis of groundnut cultivation is presented to show that its cultivation makes small and marginal farm reproduction non-viable at a Chayanovian threshold level, let alone the level of expanded reproduction desired by local farmers. This explains the enormous risk that farmers take to switch to horticulture.Less
This chapter introduces Anantapur and its semi-arid ecology that present inherent risks for cultivation in the district. Whilst the landholding pattern in the district has tended to move towards an egalitarian miniaturization, access to groundwater seems to have grown more iniquitous. Farmers across classes in the local area have been attempting to switch over from cultivating groundnut under rain-fed conditions alongside livestock rearing to horticulture by extracting groundwater, colonizing poor quality landholdings, and at times, by withdrawing from livestock rearing. This ‘restructuring’ of production has led to iniquitous and non-sustainable mining of groundwater. A detailed analysis of groundnut cultivation is presented to show that its cultivation makes small and marginal farm reproduction non-viable at a Chayanovian threshold level, let alone the level of expanded reproduction desired by local farmers. This explains the enormous risk that farmers take to switch to horticulture.
