Jens Lerche
Biographic Data
| ID | 102061 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jens Lerche |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jens |
| FAMILY NAME | Lerche |
| SIGNATURE | LERCHE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | SOAS University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3817-7058 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 521 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Racial Capitalism as a European Empire-Based World-System? Caste and Tribe and Racialized Neoliberal Capitalism in India
Uttar Pradesh: BJP and the Mobilisation of Dalits and OBCs
Introduction: Covid‐19 and the conditions and struggles of agrarian classes of labour
Covid‐19 generated a crisis in capitalism, but not of capitalism. Capitalism reproduces itself in crisis and in ways that have significant but uneven impacts on the conditions and struggles of agrarian classes of labour. This article explores preliminary studies of how Covid‐19 has affected agrarian social formations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the farmers, petty commodity producers, labourers and agribusinesses who populate them. It co…
Black lives matter, capital, and ideology: Spiraling out from India
Piketty's propositions for arresting inequality are discussed through the lens of racism/casteism. We focus on the case of India's George Floyds-the persistence of caste and tribe oppression under economic growth in India-through the insights of our long-term ethnographic research. We show that inequalities are intimately tied to dynamics of capitalist accumulation in which racial/ethnic/caste/tribe and gender difference is crucial. We argue for …
The farm laws struggle 2020-2021: Class-caste alliances and bypassed agrarian transition in neoliberal India
The article analyses the farm laws struggle in India which, at the time of writing (September 2021), has lasted more than a year. It aims to explain its unusually broad support base and to discuss the potential wider impact of the new social coalition that is emerging. It argues that the unity of the movement is forced upon the concerned social groups by the threat that the farm laws and, ultimately, the oppressive Hindu fundamentalist government…
Migration and the invisible economies of care: Production, social reproduction and seasonal migrant labour in India
This paper focuses on the processes of migrant labour exploitation which are crucial for capitalist growth and the inequalities they generate. Ethnographic research conducted in different sites across India shows how patterns of seasonal labour migration are driven by class relations marked by hierarchies of identity (caste and tribe) and the spatial geopolitics of internal colonialism (region) - differences that are mobilised for accumulation. L…
Robert W. Stern: Changing India. Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent
Robert W. Stern: Changing India. Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent Anmeldes af Jens Lerche
Conjugated oppression within contemporary capitalism: Class, caste, tribe and agrarian change in India
Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in the bypassing of agrarian transition-led industrialisation and classic proletarianisation, and class-for-itself class struggles are rare. Drawing on analyses of class relations, racism and other forms of social oppression, this contribution explores how processes of 'conjugated oppression' are central to the spread of contemporary capitalism. The focus is on India and on how the co-constitution of class re…
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2015
Introduction to the Special Issue The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: Essays in Appreciation of Henry Bernstein
This special issue presents five essays and an interview in appreciation of Henry Bernstein. The essays - by major scholars in the field of agrarian political economy - engage with different aspects of Bernstein's oeuvre: from direct critical reflections on his approach to the peasantry and the agrarian question through to arguments developed in connection to his work on commercial capitalism, landed property and the relationship between petty pr…
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2014
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2013
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2012
The ‘Bernstein & Byres Prize’ is the annual prize of the Journal of Agrarian Change (JAC). It is named after the founding editors of the Journal and has been awarded since the 2008 volume. The aim is to celebrate the outstanding contributions received by awarding a prize of £500 donated by our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, to the best published paper in any one year. Through this, we also hope to reinforce the remit of the Journal in the fie…
Introduction: Agrarian Questions and Left Politics inIndia
This special issue is concerned with agrarian questions inIndia and their importance for, and impact on, political analyses and strategies of theIndian Left. In the 1970s, the development of Left politics generated the modes of production debate and many of the communist parties used their interpretations of agrarian change then to guide theirIndian path to socialism. More than 40 years on, ongoing changes in economic and social relations in the …
The Agrarian Question in Neoliberal India: Agrarian Transition Bypassed
This paper re-interrogates the positions on the agrarian question in India, to reach fresh conclusions about important agrarian policies of the Left, including that of land reforms. Internationally, the classical political economy approach to agrarian transitions has been challenged by positions arguing (a) that neoliberalism and the international corporate food regime have led to a new dominant contradiction between the peasantry and multination…
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2011
This is the fourth time we have awarded the ‘Bernstein & Byres Prize’, which is the annual prize of the Journal of Agrarian Change (JAC). Named after the founding editors of the Journal, the prize has been awarded since the 2008 volume to the best article published in any one year. The aim is to reinforce the remit of the Journal in the field of agrarian political economy and to encourage scholarly work within this tradition. An award of £500 is …
A Note from the Editors: A Note from the Editors
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2010: The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2009: The Editors
Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India: Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India
This essay reviews five recent books concerned with different aspects of the agrarian crisis and agrarian questions in India. Each book deals, implicitly or explicitly, with specific facets of these issues. Specific regional patterns of highly exploitative agrarian capitalist developments and the role of agro-commercial capital are analysed by the books. The essay argues that the agrarian crisis is class specific and that the capitalist farming c…
The Bernstein and Byres Prize in Agrarian Change
Transnational Advocacy Networks and Affirmative Action for Dalits in India
In India, movements and parties representing the lowest ranking dalit caste groups have followed different strategies in their struggle against social, economic and cultural discrimination. In this article, a new dalit movement making use of a 'transnational advocacy network strategy' will be compared to a more 'classical'dalit political party. The main policy target for the new movement is an extension of existing affirmative action policies, wh…
Migration Land Alienation and Ethnic Conflict. Causes of Poverty in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh - by Shapan Adnan
From the New Editors
A Global Alliance against Forced Labour? Unfree Labour, Neo-Liberal Globalization and the International Labour Organization
The ILO is presently attempting to spearhead a 'global alliance against forced labour'. This article surveys the ILO approach to forced labour, recent theoretical debates regarding forced labour and recent empirical work on bonded labour in India. It argues that the ILO 'ghettoizes' forced labour, and that existing theories do not provide an alternative to this, as they focus on high-level ahistorical models. There is a need to develop specific a…
Migration and the invisible economies of care: Production, social reproduction and seasonal migrant labour in India
This paper focuses on the processes of migrant labour exploitation which are crucial for capitalist growth and the inequalities they generate. Ethnographic research conducted in different sites across India shows how patterns of seasonal labour migration are driven by class relations marked by hierarchies of identity (caste and tribe) and the spatial geopolitics of internal colonialism (region) - differences that are mobilised for accumulation. L…
A Global Alliance against Forced Labour? Unfree Labour, Neo-Liberal Globalization and the International Labour Organization
The ILO is presently attempting to spearhead a 'global alliance against forced labour'. This article surveys the ILO approach to forced labour, recent theoretical debates regarding forced labour and recent empirical work on bonded labour in India. It argues that the ILO 'ghettoizes' forced labour, and that existing theories do not provide an alternative to this, as they focus on high-level ahistorical models. There is a need to develop specific a…
Conjugated oppression within contemporary capitalism: Class, caste, tribe and agrarian change in India
Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in the bypassing of agrarian transition-led industrialisation and classic proletarianisation, and class-for-itself class struggles are rare. Drawing on analyses of class relations, racism and other forms of social oppression, this contribution explores how processes of 'conjugated oppression' are central to the spread of contemporary capitalism. The focus is on India and on how the co-constitution of class re…
The Agrarian Question in Neoliberal India: Agrarian Transition Bypassed
This paper re-interrogates the positions on the agrarian question in India, to reach fresh conclusions about important agrarian policies of the Left, including that of land reforms. Internationally, the classical political economy approach to agrarian transitions has been challenged by positions arguing (a) that neoliberalism and the international corporate food regime have led to a new dominant contradiction between the peasantry and multination…
Politics of the poor: Agricultural labourers and political transformations in Uttar Pradesh
1999). Politics of the poor: Agricultural labourers and political transformations in Uttar Pradesh. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 26, Rural Labour Relations in India, pp. 182-241
Stating the Difference: State, Discourse and Class Reproduction in Uttar Pradesh, India
Much development literature concerned with state-society relations operates with a simplistic state-people dichotomy. In contrast, this article focuses on the intersection between state and society and argues that this plays an important part in class reproduction in 'civil society'. This issue is explored with reference to the role of the local state in class reproduction in the Indian countryside. The focus is on the means by which rural social…
Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India: Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India
This essay reviews five recent books concerned with different aspects of the agrarian crisis and agrarian questions in India. Each book deals, implicitly or explicitly, with specific facets of these issues. Specific regional patterns of highly exploitative agrarian capitalist developments and the role of agro-commercial capital are analysed by the books. The essay argues that the agrarian crisis is class specific and that the capitalist farming c…
Is bonded labour a bound category? -Reconceptualising agrarian conflict in India
This article discusses the position of 'agrarian struggle' within agrarian labour relations in India. It is argued that local labour relations and conflicts should be understood within the context of a wider balance of power between the concerned groups, regionally as well as locally. When examining local relations from this perspective, a number of well-established positions on agrarian conflict can be challenged. The interrelationship between p…
The farm laws struggle 2020-2021: Class-caste alliances and bypassed agrarian transition in neoliberal India
The article analyses the farm laws struggle in India which, at the time of writing (September 2021), has lasted more than a year. It aims to explain its unusually broad support base and to discuss the potential wider impact of the new social coalition that is emerging. It argues that the unity of the movement is forced upon the concerned social groups by the threat that the farm laws and, ultimately, the oppressive Hindu fundamentalist government…
Introduction: Agrarian Questions and Left Politics inIndia
This special issue is concerned with agrarian questions inIndia and their importance for, and impact on, political analyses and strategies of theIndian Left. In the 1970s, the development of Left politics generated the modes of production debate and many of the communist parties used their interpretations of agrarian change then to guide theirIndian path to socialism. More than 40 years on, ongoing changes in economic and social relations in the …
Transnational Advocacy Networks and Affirmative Action for Dalits in India
In India, movements and parties representing the lowest ranking dalit caste groups have followed different strategies in their struggle against social, economic and cultural discrimination. In this article, a new dalit movement making use of a 'transnational advocacy network strategy' will be compared to a more 'classical'dalit political party. The main policy target for the new movement is an extension of existing affirmative action policies, wh…
Dominant Castes, Rajas, Brahmins and Inter-Caste Exchange Relations in Coastal Orissa: Behind the Facade of the `Jajmani System
Le « systeme jajmani » a longtemps ete considere comme un modele des relations rurales intercastes valable pour toute l'Inde. L'A. etudie les relations existant entre les castes dominantes, les fermiers, les rajas, les brahmanes et les castes de serviteurs dans la partie cotiere de l'Orissa pour montrer que les realites locales s'eloignent du « systeme jajmani » . Ces relations sont notamment fondees sur le developpement historique de l'organisat…
Black lives matter, capital, and ideology: Spiraling out from India
Piketty's propositions for arresting inequality are discussed through the lens of racism/casteism. We focus on the case of India's George Floyds-the persistence of caste and tribe oppression under economic growth in India-through the insights of our long-term ethnographic research. We show that inequalities are intimately tied to dynamics of capitalist accumulation in which racial/ethnic/caste/tribe and gender difference is crucial. We argue for …
Introduction to the Special Issue The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: Essays in Appreciation of Henry Bernstein
This special issue presents five essays and an interview in appreciation of Henry Bernstein. The essays - by major scholars in the field of agrarian political economy - engage with different aspects of Bernstein's oeuvre: from direct critical reflections on his approach to the peasantry and the agrarian question through to arguments developed in connection to his work on commercial capitalism, landed property and the relationship between petty pr…
The Modernization of Relations of Dominance between Farmers and Artisans in Coastal Orissa
Cet article etudie l'impact des transformations de l'economie rurale indienne sur les relations entre agriculteurs et artisans dans la zone cotiere de l'Orissa. L'etude est centree sur l'evolution du systeme « jajmani » qui regit les relations villageoises socio-religieuses intercastes en fonction des attributions d'activites assignees a chaque caste : soient les relations respectives des brahmanes, des castes dites de « service », et des domesti…
Uttar Pradesh: BJP and the Mobilisation of Dalits and OBCs
From the New Editors
The Modernization of Relations of Dominance between Farmers and Artisans in Coastal Orissa
Cet article etudie l'impact des transformations de l'economie rurale indienne sur les relations entre agriculteurs et artisans dans la zone cotiere de l'Orissa. L'etude est centree sur l'evolution du systeme « jajmani » qui regit les relations villageoises socio-religieuses intercastes en fonction des attributions d'activites assignees a chaque caste : soient les relations respectives des brahmanes, des castes dites de « service », et des domesti…
Dominant Castes, Rajas, Brahmins and Inter-Caste Exchange Relations in Coastal Orissa: Behind the Facade of the `Jajmani System
Le « systeme jajmani » a longtemps ete considere comme un modele des relations rurales intercastes valable pour toute l'Inde. L'A. etudie les relations existant entre les castes dominantes, les fermiers, les rajas, les brahmanes et les castes de serviteurs dans la partie cotiere de l'Orissa pour montrer que les realites locales s'eloignent du « systeme jajmani » . Ces relations sont notamment fondees sur le developpement historique de l'organisat…
Is bonded labour a bound category? -Reconceptualising agrarian conflict in India
This article discusses the position of 'agrarian struggle' within agrarian labour relations in India. It is argued that local labour relations and conflicts should be understood within the context of a wider balance of power between the concerned groups, regionally as well as locally. When examining local relations from this perspective, a number of well-established positions on agrarian conflict can be challenged. The interrelationship between p…
Politics of the poor: Agricultural labourers and political transformations in Uttar Pradesh
1999). Politics of the poor: Agricultural labourers and political transformations in Uttar Pradesh. The Journal of Peasant Studies: Vol. 26, Rural Labour Relations in India, pp. 182-241
Stating the Difference: State, Discourse and Class Reproduction in Uttar Pradesh, India
Much development literature concerned with state-society relations operates with a simplistic state-people dichotomy. In contrast, this article focuses on the intersection between state and society and argues that this plays an important part in class reproduction in 'civil society'. This issue is explored with reference to the role of the local state in class reproduction in the Indian countryside. The focus is on the means by which rural social…
A Global Alliance against Forced Labour? Unfree Labour, Neo-Liberal Globalization and the International Labour Organization
The ILO is presently attempting to spearhead a 'global alliance against forced labour'. This article surveys the ILO approach to forced labour, recent theoretical debates regarding forced labour and recent empirical work on bonded labour in India. It argues that the ILO 'ghettoizes' forced labour, and that existing theories do not provide an alternative to this, as they focus on high-level ahistorical models. There is a need to develop specific a…
Labour Bondage in Western India: From Past to Present by Jan Breman
Transnational Advocacy Networks and Affirmative Action for Dalits in India
In India, movements and parties representing the lowest ranking dalit caste groups have followed different strategies in their struggle against social, economic and cultural discrimination. In this article, a new dalit movement making use of a 'transnational advocacy network strategy' will be compared to a more 'classical'dalit political party. The main policy target for the new movement is an extension of existing affirmative action policies, wh…
Migration Land Alienation and Ethnic Conflict. Causes of Poverty in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh - by Shapan Adnan
From the New Editors
The Bernstein and Byres Prize in Agrarian Change
A Note from the Editors: A Note from the Editors
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2010: The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2009: The Editors
Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India: Agrarian Crisis and Agrarian Questions in India
This essay reviews five recent books concerned with different aspects of the agrarian crisis and agrarian questions in India. Each book deals, implicitly or explicitly, with specific facets of these issues. Specific regional patterns of highly exploitative agrarian capitalist developments and the role of agro-commercial capital are analysed by the books. The essay argues that the agrarian crisis is class specific and that the capitalist farming c…
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2011
This is the fourth time we have awarded the ‘Bernstein & Byres Prize’, which is the annual prize of the Journal of Agrarian Change (JAC). Named after the founding editors of the Journal, the prize has been awarded since the 2008 volume to the best article published in any one year. The aim is to reinforce the remit of the Journal in the field of agrarian political economy and to encourage scholarly work within this tradition. An award of £500 is …
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2012
The ‘Bernstein & Byres Prize’ is the annual prize of the Journal of Agrarian Change (JAC). It is named after the founding editors of the Journal and has been awarded since the 2008 volume. The aim is to celebrate the outstanding contributions received by awarding a prize of £500 donated by our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, to the best published paper in any one year. Through this, we also hope to reinforce the remit of the Journal in the fie…
Introduction: Agrarian Questions and Left Politics inIndia
This special issue is concerned with agrarian questions inIndia and their importance for, and impact on, political analyses and strategies of theIndian Left. In the 1970s, the development of Left politics generated the modes of production debate and many of the communist parties used their interpretations of agrarian change then to guide theirIndian path to socialism. More than 40 years on, ongoing changes in economic and social relations in the …
The Agrarian Question in Neoliberal India: Agrarian Transition Bypassed
This paper re-interrogates the positions on the agrarian question in India, to reach fresh conclusions about important agrarian policies of the Left, including that of land reforms. Internationally, the classical political economy approach to agrarian transitions has been challenged by positions arguing (a) that neoliberalism and the international corporate food regime have led to a new dominant contradiction between the peasantry and multination…
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2013
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2014
The Bernstein & Byres Prize in Agrarian Change for 2015
Introduction to the Special Issue The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: Essays in Appreciation of Henry Bernstein
This special issue presents five essays and an interview in appreciation of Henry Bernstein. The essays - by major scholars in the field of agrarian political economy - engage with different aspects of Bernstein's oeuvre: from direct critical reflections on his approach to the peasantry and the agrarian question through to arguments developed in connection to his work on commercial capitalism, landed property and the relationship between petty pr…
Conjugated oppression within contemporary capitalism: Class, caste, tribe and agrarian change in India
Neoliberal globalisation has resulted in the bypassing of agrarian transition-led industrialisation and classic proletarianisation, and class-for-itself class struggles are rare. Drawing on analyses of class relations, racism and other forms of social oppression, this contribution explores how processes of 'conjugated oppression' are central to the spread of contemporary capitalism. The focus is on India and on how the co-constitution of class re…
Robert W. Stern: Changing India. Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent
Robert W. Stern: Changing India. Bourgeois Revolution on the Subcontinent Anmeldes af Jens Lerche
Sociology (22 works) · Agrarian society (19 works) · Political science (17 works) · Agriculture (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Geography (12 works) · History (12 works) · History (12 works)