Alienated Enclaves: Economic Crisis and Neo-bondage in a South Indian Plantation Belt

Abstract

The recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry has led to the closure of many plantations and to the marginalization of the plantation workers. A critical analysis of the social processes that evolve out of the crisis-ridden plantations reveals otherwise hidden forces that condition continuing marginality of the workers. Accordingly, the major focus of the article is to identify and delineate the social processes that underpin the social reproduction of the plantation workers' alienation in the crisis context. This article suggests that the marginal position of the plantation workforce, both in India and elsewhere, needs to be understood as a phenomenon equally reinforced by the larger social processes of the region as much as by the economic processes specific to the plantation system.