Vulnerable Communities in Neoliberal India: Perspectives from a Feminist Ethnographic Approach

Mohan, Chindaliya, and Thomas offer an ethnographic critique of modern, neoliberal India from the perspective of studying the daily lives-livelihoods of marginalised, unsecured, informal vulnerable communities residing in the urban, peri-urban spaces across the nation.

With case studies ranging from groups of pastoralists, fisher-folk, and handicraft workers of Kashmir to the weavers of Kutch, and the factory workers and artisans of the Delhi capital, this edited volume of feminist ethnographies cover previously undocumented geographical and socio-cultural contexts of vulnerable groups, put together by the Centre for New Economics Studies, O.P. Jindal Global University. The diverse range of ethnographic case studies further explore the invisibilisation of the growing informal sector in India’s labor market, studied through the applied concepts of Gayatri Spivak’s othering, Doreen Massey’s power geometries and Pierre Bourdieu’s (fractured) habitus. In addition to providing visual narratives of daily lifestyle, livelihoods of identified communities, our ethnographic analysis is rooted in discussing feminist paradigms from each study’s respondents.

A useful read for scholars and policymakers interested in understanding intersectional applications of development studies in context of the unsecured workforce in India, with application across disciplines of social-economic anthropology of South Asia, using the methodological lens of experimental ethnography.

Deepanshu Mohan is Professor of Economics and Dean, Office of Interdisciplinarity Studies, Director, Centre for New Economics Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University. He is Visiting Professor, Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics; Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, University of London.

Sakshi Chindaliya is an Assistant Lecturer and Programme Coordinator at Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University. As a feminist geographer, she is interested in gender and sexuality studies, development studies, and feminist ethnographies of water and disasters.

Ashika Thomas is an MSc Development Studies student at the London School of Economics and Political Science. With a background in both economics and anthropology, she is interested in exploring themes within India’s informal economy and the role of CSOs in social policy.