Of white whale and countrymen in the eighteenth‐century Maratha Deccan. extended class relations, rights, and the problem of rural autonomy under the old regime 1
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24304374 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Frank Perlin |
| Year | 1978 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 172-237 |
| Publication date | 1978-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03066157808438045 |
| OpenAlex | W2154032292 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 25 |
| References cited | 27 |
The problem is simply stated, but resists solution. We begin with the classical historiographic images of Old Regime societies of South Asia and suggest that beneath the surface of abstract formulations for and against these images, unrecognised difficulties of assumption and method allow them to persist in the contemporary imagination. This not only hampers understanding of historic societies, taken individually, but prevents proper assessment of their comparative significance on an international plane. The relationship between these images of discontinuity and similar sociological images of European peasantry is not coincidental. The errors of the latter are demonstrable through an abundant historiography; the burden of this essay is directed towards a solution to the former. We provide an empirically‐based structural study of social relationships in the countryside of Maharashtra in the 150 years preceding European occupation: a) to begin the accumulation of examples that contradict the received images; b) to provide an analysis of one Old Regime society for its own comparative sake. By examining the social distribution of certain types of right and of access to control of land, we demonstrate the existence of powerful forms of social dominance transcending the frontiers of the village, and strongly influencing the organisation of social, economic and political life in the countryside. Whilst we focus on a specific structural problem (namely, the conception of social totality and its internal ordering), the conclusion and footnotes permit the actual dynamism of the forms of relationship studied to emerge in incipient statement on social change under the old order.†
18th century · Ancien regime · class relations · Land rights · Maharashtra · rural autonomy · Rural society · Social change · social dominance · social totality · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Social and Economic Development in India · South Asian Studies and Diaspora
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Caste, society and politics in India from the eighteenth century to the modern age
Historical origins of a ‘caste society’
From Peasant Studies to Agrarian Change
V. State Formation and Transformation in Early Modern India and Southeast Asia
The Government of Social Life in Colonial India
Rethinking the Economy of Mughal India
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Living on the edge
Concepts of order and comparison, with a diversion on counter ideologies and corporate institutions in late pre‐ colonial India
The Material and the Cultural
The Maratha Brahmin model in south India
Speaking from Siva's temple
Forms of citizenship in pre-modern South India
In the Presence of Witnesses
Letters Home
South Asia, the World System, and World Capitalism
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State Formation and Economy Reconsidered
State and Economy in India over Seven Hundred Years
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Family and inheritance
The awkward class
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The Indian Historical Review
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India at the Death of Akbar
The Iron Century. Social Change in Europe, 1550-1660
The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb
À propos de l'endettement rural au XVIIIe siècle
Western India in the Nineteenth Century
Mughal Administration in Golconda
The French Aristocracy in the Early Middle Ages
Pastoralists and Nomads in South Asia
The Myth of the Deccan Riots of 1875
Sociologie de la campagne francaise
Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule
Feudal Society
Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule
Cycles, trends and academics among the peasantry of North-West India
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1982 - 2019 (38) |
| Highly cited | No |