1st Edition
Dynamics of Difference Inequality and Transformation in Rural India
This original conceptualization provides insights into the role of inequality in the processes of change in rural India. It presents in-depth analyses and understanding of the nature and form of inequality, and its causes and consequences. The volume examines interpersonal, intergroup, and intrapersonal inequalities in the country’s rural transformation. Through research based on ethnographic, primary survey and secondary data methods, this multidimensional study discusses key themes such as normative and descriptive inequalities; class, caste and other identities; economic poverty; educational poverty; poverty in health; gendered poverty; inequality and power; the impact of migration; ethical issues and vulnerabilities; and suicidal consequences of inequality. It builds cohesive arguments, based on the development of several new indicators, to examine rural inequality.
This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of political economy, economics, development studies, development economics, sociology, public policy, political science, political sociology, and rural sociology.
List of figures
List of tables
Contributors
Preface
Part I: Visualizing inequality
1. Processes of inequality
Narendar Pani
2. Processes of transformation
Sumedha Bajar
3. Vulnerability and escape
Narendar Pani
Part II: Interpersonal and intergroup inequalities
4. Tangible vulnerability
Narendar Pani and Kshitija Joshi
5. Gendered intangible inequality
Chandana Rajasekharan Bindu, Pratheeba Vimalnath, and Narendar Pani
6. Power and dominance
Narendar Pani, Chandana Rajasekharan Bindu, and Megha Poonia
Part III: Intrapersonal inequalities
7. Intrapersonal inequality and distance dualism
Narendar Pani and Ajit Kumar Babu
8. Caste, power, and aspiration in structural dualism
Jiyaul Haque
9. Regional divergence in farmers’ suicides
Debosree Banerjee
10. Conceptualizing farmers’ suicides
Narendar Pani
11. Agricultural labourer suicides in a Kerala village
P. Shihabudeen, Debosree Banerjee, and Kshitija Joshi
12. Cultivator suicides in a Maharashtra village
Ankit Saswade and Kshitija Joshi
13. Precariousness and suicide
Narendar Pani and Debosree Banerjee
Part IV: Negotiations of inequality
14. Aspirations and victimhood
Narendar Pani, Ubaid Mushtaq, and Megha Poonia
15. Difference and inequality
Narendar Pani
Biography
Narendar Pani is Professor and Head of the Inequality and Human Development Programme at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India.