Jonathan Parry

Bio: Jonathan Parry is an academic researcher from Max Planck Society. The author has contributed to research in topics: Morality & Workforce. The author has an hindex of 26, co-authored 58 publications receiving 6472 citations. Previous affiliations of Jonathan Parry include London School of Economics and Political Science.

The worlds of Indian industrial labour

Abstract: Introduction - Jonathan P Parry The Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India - The Formal Sector - Jan Breman An Introductory Review Work and Resistance in the Jharia Coalfield - Dilip Simeon On Living in the Kal(i)yug - Christopher Pinney Notes from Nagda, Madhya Pradesh Lords of Labour - Jonathan Parry Working and Shirking in Bhilai Just Like a Family? Recalling Relations of Production in the Textile Industries of Surat and Bhiwandi, 1940-60 - Douglas E Haynes Hope and Despair - Chitra Joshi Textile Workers in Kanpur in 1937-38 and the 1990s Questions of Class - Rajnarayan Chandavarkar The General Strikes in Bombay, 1928-29 At the Margins - Samita Sen Women Workers in the Bengal Jute Industry The Badli System in Industrial Labour Recruitment - Arjan de Haan Managers' and Workers' Strategies in Calcutta's Jute Industry Artisan Labour in the Agra Footwear Industry - Peter Knorringa Continued Informality and Changing Threats Gender Ideologies and the Formation of Rural Industrial Classes in South India Today - Karin Kapadia Diamonds and Patels - Miranda Engelshoven A Report on the Diamond Industry of Surat Asking For and Giving Baki - Geert de Neve Neo-Bondage, or the Interplay of Bondage and Resistance in the Tamilnadu Power-Loom Industry The Study of Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India - The Informal Sector - Jan Breman A Concluding Review

“Sociological Marxism” in central India: Polanyi, Gramsci, and the case of the unions

Abstract: Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, The Great Transformation, offered a radical critique of how the market system has affected society and humanity since the industrial revolution. This volume brings together contributions from distinguished scholars in economic anthropology, sociology and political economy to consider Polanyi's theories in the light of circumstances today, when the relationship between market and society has again become a focus of intense political and scientific debate. It demonstrates the relevance of Polanyi's ideas to various theoretical traditions in the social sciences and provides new perspectives on topics such as money, risk, work and the family.

Suicide in a central Indian steel town

Abstract: Over the past 15 years ‘farmer suicides’ have occasioned grave public concern; and it has recently been claimed that Chhattisgarh has the highest incidence in the country. This article suggests that the representation of such cases as the major public policy problem to do with self-inflicted death is politically inflected and that there are good grounds for supposing that—at least in certain pockets—the urban suicide rate is as high, if not higher. In the industrial area around steel town of Bhilai, this has risen dramatically over the last 20 years and it is the aristocracy of public sector labour that is significantly most susceptible. This is ultimately attributable to the liberalisation of the economy and the consequent downsizing of this workforce, which has led to a crisis in the reproduction of class status. Such workers are privileged; think of themselves as different from the informal sector ‘labour class’ and fear sinking into it. Suicides are significantly under-reported and the official statistics are systematically inflected by fear of the police and the law, which encourage both concealment and the deliberate obfuscation of likely motives, and almost certainly increase the ‘lethal probabilities’ of suicide attempts.

Sex, Bricks and Mortar: Constructing Class in a Central Indian Steel Town

Abstract: Based on a case study of informal sector construction labour in the central Indian steel town of Bhilai, this paper explores the intersection and the mutually constitutive relationship between social class on the one hand, and gender (and more specifically sexual) relations on the other. It is part of an attempt to document and analyse a process of class differentiation within the manual labour force between aspirant middle class organized sector workers and the unorganized sector ‘labour class’. With some help from the (pre-capitalist) ‘culture’ of their commonly work-shy men-folk, their class situation forces ‘labour class’ women onto construction sites where they are vulnerable to the sexual predation of supervisors, contractors and owners. That some acquiesce reinforces the widespread belief that ‘labour class’ women are sexually available, which in turn provides ‘proof’ to the labour aristocracy that they themselves are a different and better breed, superior in culture and morals. Class inequalities produce a particular configuration of gender relations; gender relations (and in particular sexual relations) produce a powerful ideological justification for class differentiation. This proposition has strong resonances with processes reported from other parts of the world; but in the Indian context and in its specific focus on sex it has not been clearly articulated and its significance for class formation has not been adequately appreciated.

Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography

Abstract: This review surveys an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and the “global,” the “lifeworld” and the “system.” Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise are considered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within new spheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies broadly. Several “tracking” strategies that shape multi-site...

The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities

Abstract: The author develops “netnography” as an online marketing research technique for providing consumer insight. Netnography is ethnography adapted to the study of online communities. As a method, netnography is faster, simpler, and less expensive than traditional ethnography and more naturalistic and unobtrusive than focus groups or interviews. It provides information on the symbolism, meanings, and consumption patterns of online consumer groups. The author provides guidelines that acknowledge the online environment, respect the inherent flexibility and openness of ethnography, and provide rigor and ethics in the conduct of marketing research. As an illustrative example, the author provides a netnography of an online coffee newsgroup and discusses its marketing implications.

Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy

Abstract: The Study of Man. By Michael Polanyi. Price, $1.75. Pp. 102. University of Chicago Press, 5750 Ellis Ave., Chicago 37, 1959. One subtitle to Polanyi's challenging and fascinating book might be The Evolution and Natural History of Error , for Polanyi is at pains to expunge what he believes to be the false notion contained in the contemporary view of science which treats it as an object and basically impersonal discipline. According to Polanyi not only is this a radical and important error, but it is harmful to the objectives of science itself. Another subtitle could be Farewell to Detachment , for in place of cold objectivity he develops the idea that science is necessarily intensely personal. It is a human endeavor and human point of view which cannot be divorced from nor uprooted out of the human matrix from which it arises and in which it works. For a good while

The sources of social power

Abstract: Distinguishing four sources of power in human societies – ideological, economic, military and political – The Sources of Social Power traces their interrelations throughout human history In this first volume, Michael Mann examines interrelations between these elements from neolithic times, through ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the classical Mediterranean age and medieval Europe, up to just before the Industrial Revolution in England It offers explanations of the emergence of the state and social stratification; of city-states, militaristic empires and the persistent interaction between them; of the world salvation religions; and of the particular dynamism of medieval and early modern Europe It ends by generalizing about the nature of overall social development, the varying forms of social cohesion and the role of classes and class struggle in history First published in 1986, this new edition of Volume 1 includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of the work

A Theory of Access.

Abstract: The term "access" is frequently used by property and natural resource analysts without adequate definition. In this paper we develop a concept of access and examine a broad set of factors that differentiate access from property. We define access as "the ability to derive benefits from things," broadening from property's clas- sical definition as "the right to benefit from things." Access, following this definition, is more akin to "a bundle of powers" than to property's notion of a "bundle of rights." This formulation includes a wider range of social relationships that constrain or enable benefits from resource use than property relations alone. Using this fram- ing, we suggest a method of access analysis for identifying the constellations of means, relations, and processes that enable various actors to derive benefits from re- sources. Our intent is to enable scholars, planners, and policy makers to empirically "map" dynamic processes and relationships of access.