J Raj
Biographic Data
| ID | 52047 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Raj |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Raj |
| SIGNATURE | RAJ J |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4566-5765 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Counter‐Plantation Imaginaries
This article examines the decline of the 2015 Pembillai Orumai movement in India's Munnar tea belt as an event revealing the dialectical relationship between labour struggle and agrarian capitalism within the plantation complex. Although widely celebrated for securing wage gains through a historic Dalit woman–led strike, the movement's rapid organisational collapse calls for deeper explanation. Through longitudinal ethnography, this article argue…
Caste of labourers
Interlocked
This article examines the employment of kinship relations in sustaining the plantation economy and in perpetuating the precariousness of child labourers who later became temporary workers in the tea plantations of Kerala, South India. Kinship ties locked diverse workers into a moral obligation of care that could easily be manipulated by plantation management as a form of labour control. Plantation capitalism, therefore, sustained itself not only …
Post-colonial caste, Ambedkar, and the politics of counter-narrative
This article examines the way caste is captured within the dominant and popular scholarly tradition of post-colonialism. It will also explore how Ambedkar’s anthropological emphasis on the centrality of sociocultural relations for understanding caste dynamics opens up the limitation of a post-colonial understanding of caste. In doing so, the paper is oriented to advance a Dalit-centric historical anthropology of caste. The focus on the relationsh…
Categorical oppression
What does ‘identity’ really mean for the migrant workforce beyond its function in production relations? How are forms of identity evoked within broader social relations in a migrant context? This article explores these questions by looking at how the Tamil Dalit tea workers in the South Indian state of Kerala experience the stigmatisation of their identity categories in the context of two significant events that occurred in the tea belt—an econom…
Crisis and retirement
The recent crisis in the tea industry has devastated the livelihood of the Dalit workforce in the South Indian state of Kerala. Retired workers were worst affected, since the plantation companies-under the disguise of the crisis-deferred their service payout. This article seeks to understand the severe alienation of the retirees as they struggle to regain lost respect, kinship network, and everyday sociality in the plantations and beyond. I argue…
From labour contractors to worker-agents
This article examines the circumstances in which the tasks performed by professional labour contractors may be passed on to worker-agents. It does so by critically engaging with the experience of migrant workers from the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand as they travel to work in the Peermade tea belt in the South Indian state of Kerala. Specifically, we identify shifts in economic and political contexts that have permitted these functions to pas…
Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis
This article examines rumour and gossip among the tea workers in the south Indian state of Kerala in the context of recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry. It argues that gossip and rumour may have distinct effects with regard to resistance and accommodation in the crisis-ridden plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, trade unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensu…
Beyond the unions
The article examines an extraordinary wildcat strike led by women tea workers against a giant tea plantation company and dominant trade unions in the south Indian tea belt of Munnar. It employs situational analysis to examine the larger processes that led to the strike, implications for the workers, and to the wider socio-economic relations in the tea belt. It is argued here that in addition to the exploitative plantation production and the poor …
Alienated Enclaves
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 r…
Alienated Enclaves
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 r…
Beyond the unions
The article examines an extraordinary wildcat strike led by women tea workers against a giant tea plantation company and dominant trade unions in the south Indian tea belt of Munnar. It employs situational analysis to examine the larger processes that led to the strike, implications for the workers, and to the wider socio-economic relations in the tea belt. It is argued here that in addition to the exploitative plantation production and the poor …
From labour contractors to worker-agents
This article examines the circumstances in which the tasks performed by professional labour contractors may be passed on to worker-agents. It does so by critically engaging with the experience of migrant workers from the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand as they travel to work in the Peermade tea belt in the South Indian state of Kerala. Specifically, we identify shifts in economic and political contexts that have permitted these functions to pas…
Interlocked
This article examines the employment of kinship relations in sustaining the plantation economy and in perpetuating the precariousness of child labourers who later became temporary workers in the tea plantations of Kerala, South India. Kinship ties locked diverse workers into a moral obligation of care that could easily be manipulated by plantation management as a form of labour control. Plantation capitalism, therefore, sustained itself not only …
Crisis and retirement
The recent crisis in the tea industry has devastated the livelihood of the Dalit workforce in the South Indian state of Kerala. Retired workers were worst affected, since the plantation companies-under the disguise of the crisis-deferred their service payout. This article seeks to understand the severe alienation of the retirees as they struggle to regain lost respect, kinship network, and everyday sociality in the plantations and beyond. I argue…
Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis
This article examines rumour and gossip among the tea workers in the south Indian state of Kerala in the context of recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry. It argues that gossip and rumour may have distinct effects with regard to resistance and accommodation in the crisis-ridden plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, trade unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensu…
Alienated Enclaves
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 r…
From labour contractors to worker-agents
This article examines the circumstances in which the tasks performed by professional labour contractors may be passed on to worker-agents. It does so by critically engaging with the experience of migrant workers from the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand as they travel to work in the Peermade tea belt in the South Indian state of Kerala. Specifically, we identify shifts in economic and political contexts that have permitted these functions to pas…
Rumour and gossip in a time of crisis
This article examines rumour and gossip among the tea workers in the south Indian state of Kerala in the context of recent economic crisis in the Indian tea industry. It argues that gossip and rumour may have distinct effects with regard to resistance and accommodation in the crisis-ridden plantations. The analysis of the gossip shows that the workers are critical of the plantation management, trade unions and the Kerala state for failing to ensu…
Beyond the unions
The article examines an extraordinary wildcat strike led by women tea workers against a giant tea plantation company and dominant trade unions in the south Indian tea belt of Munnar. It employs situational analysis to examine the larger processes that led to the strike, implications for the workers, and to the wider socio-economic relations in the tea belt. It is argued here that in addition to the exploitative plantation production and the poor …
Categorical oppression
What does ‘identity’ really mean for the migrant workforce beyond its function in production relations? How are forms of identity evoked within broader social relations in a migrant context? This article explores these questions by looking at how the Tamil Dalit tea workers in the South Indian state of Kerala experience the stigmatisation of their identity categories in the context of two significant events that occurred in the tea belt—an econom…
Crisis and retirement
The recent crisis in the tea industry has devastated the livelihood of the Dalit workforce in the South Indian state of Kerala. Retired workers were worst affected, since the plantation companies-under the disguise of the crisis-deferred their service payout. This article seeks to understand the severe alienation of the retirees as they struggle to regain lost respect, kinship network, and everyday sociality in the plantations and beyond. I argue…
Post-colonial caste, Ambedkar, and the politics of counter-narrative
This article examines the way caste is captured within the dominant and popular scholarly tradition of post-colonialism. It will also explore how Ambedkar’s anthropological emphasis on the centrality of sociocultural relations for understanding caste dynamics opens up the limitation of a post-colonial understanding of caste. In doing so, the paper is oriented to advance a Dalit-centric historical anthropology of caste. The focus on the relationsh…
Caste of labourers
Interlocked
This article examines the employment of kinship relations in sustaining the plantation economy and in perpetuating the precariousness of child labourers who later became temporary workers in the tea plantations of Kerala, South India. Kinship ties locked diverse workers into a moral obligation of care that could easily be manipulated by plantation management as a form of labour control. Plantation capitalism, therefore, sustained itself not only …
Counter‐Plantation Imaginaries
This article examines the decline of the 2015 Pembillai Orumai movement in India's Munnar tea belt as an event revealing the dialectical relationship between labour struggle and agrarian capitalism within the plantation complex. Although widely celebrated for securing wage gains through a historic Dalit woman–led strike, the movement's rapid organisational collapse calls for deeper explanation. Through longitudinal ethnography, this article argue…
Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (7 works) · Economics (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Development economics (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Alienation (3 works) · Anthropology (3 works)