Circular Migration and the Spaces of Cultural Assertion

Abstract Harnessing primary and secondary evidence from India, our essay conceptualizes the cultural dynamics of migration. In so doing, it demonstrates the incompleteness of standard marginalist and Marxist accounts of labor circulation. As a corrective, we examine the linkages between culture, politics, space, and labor mobility and offer a way to think about them by building on poststructural critiques of development and postcolonial theories of migrant subjectivity. The proverbial compression of space-time not only has made extralocal work more viable for members of proletarianized groups but, more importantly, has allowed them to transfer their experiences of new ways of being into local contexts through acts of consumption and labor deployment that can become elements of a Gramscian counterhegemonic praxis. We argue that the possibility of this sort of "body politics" compels not merely a critique of the modernization paradigm that has organized classical migration studies but, more profoundly, a reassessment of the way we understand modernity itself. We advocate an approach that provincializes the Eurowest and foregrounds the existence of pluritopic "regional modernities." Key Words: consumptionIndiamigrationregional modernitieswork Acknowledgments Special thanks to John Paul Jones III for his advice on content and organization, and to the various anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the original article. We particularly acknowledge the detailed critiques of two referees, who compelled us to undertake difficult but entirely necessary revisions and, we hope, write a substantially stronger article. We are grateful to Ron Aminzade, Ben Crow, Michael Dove, Ben Rogaly, James Scott, and Mark Steinberg for their meticulous comments on earlier versions of this article, and we thank Paul Alexander, Tania Li, Mary Beth Mills, CitationDavid Mosse, Pauline Peters, and Jeff Romm for helpful conversations along the way. Thanks also to Sula Sarkar for her cartographic assistance. Responsibility for remaining errors or inconsistencies is entirely ours. The various pieces of research on which this essay is based were supported by grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Izaak Walton Killam Foundation of Canada, the Population Council, the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Institute of Development Studies, the University of Sussex, U.K. and the Royalty Research Fund, University of Washington. Our heaviest intellectual and emotional debts are to friends and acquaintances in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal who made our research possible. Our abiding thanks as well to V. Arivudai Nambi and Muniappan for their crucial support during field research in Tiruvannamalai District, Tamil Nadu, in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Notes 1. The observations developed in this essay apply to seasonal or circular migrants and relay migrants, not to permanent out-migrants. Labor circulation encompasses transhumance, rural to urban, and intrarural migration, whether of a short term or semipermanent nature. For taxonomies of migration, see CitationChapman and Prothero (1985) and CitationRogaly (1996). 2. Our stance on "modernity" deserves clarification: we reject both the "transition" narrative that portrays the history of societies as a discontinuous switch from the "traditional" to the "modern" (hence, implicitly suggests a defining moment when "modernity" takes hold of rural society) and the related "modernization" narrative that portrays history in progressivist, evolutionary terms. Instead, we take the position of South Asian and Latin American scholars of subalternity (CitationChatterjee 1993; CitationCoronil 1997; CitationDussel 1998; CitationMignolo 1999; CitationPrakash 1999; CitationChakrabarty 2000) that "modernity" is a pluritopic phenomenon, not confined to Europe, and that the rationalizing effects we observe in societies and ascribe to a singular, European modernity are in fact the operation of an Eurocentric discourse that has collapsed geographically differentiated processes of modernity (representing the articulation of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial polities) into a unitary, historicist account. CitationWatts (1995) makes a similar point. 3. CitationHarvey (1989), CitationAnderson (1998), and CitationTwitchell (1999) offer trenchant analyses of these pathologies, particularly commodity fetishism. 4. Although we bracket the issue of gender in this article, obviously our intention is neither to suggest that the migrating body is only male nor to say that the renegotiation of gender identities is politically less salient than the tussles over class, ethnic, caste, and tribal identities. Rather, our emphasis in this article on caste and tribal identifications reflects our research trajectory, as well as a perceived gap in the migration literature on these struggles. 5. We understand "labor valorization," in CitationMarx's ([1876] 1976, ch. 7) sense, as the process whereby the commodity, labor power, is purchased and consumed for its use-value within a capitalist production process in order to generate surplus value. However, in this article we understand acts of consumption and labor valorization not as merely about the acquisition of use- or the transfer of exchange-values, but just as crucially, for their symbolic value in communicating social distinction. The communicative aspect of commodities is the subject of a rich literature. We owe debts primarily to CitationVeblen ([1899] 1994), CitationDouglas and Isherwood ([1979] 1996), CitationBourdieu (1984), CitationAppadurai (1986), CitationBaudrillard (1988), CitationMcCracken (1988), CitationParry and Bloch (1989), and CitationMiller (1995a, Citation1995b). Like several of these authors, we want to underscore the signaling and gate-keeping functions of commodities—the ways in which they serve to mark social boundaries and hierarchies. 6. CitationBourdieu (1977) contrasts "heterodoxy" (the universe of competing possibilities) to "doxa" (the universe of undisputed ideas) and "orthodoxy" (the universe of straightened or rationalized ideas). We employ the word "heterodoxy" in this precise sense to convey the point that "body politics" is intrinsically about the dominated challenging the institutionalized or internalized censorships of the dominant. 7. CitationArnold (1984) discusses how Gramsci's ideas can augment our understanding of peasant subalternity in India. 8. Aside from the work of Stuart Hall (see, for instance, CitationHall and Jefferson 1976) and the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, the work of Michel Citationde Certeau (1984) also deserves mention here. Witness this account (1984, xii–xiii): To a rationalized, expansionist and at the same time centralized, clamorous, and spectacular production [i.e., a dominating media] corresponds another production, called "consumption." The latter is devious, it is dispersed, but it insinuates itself everywhere, silent and almost invisibly, because it does not manifest itself through its own products, but rather through its ways of using the products imposed by a dominant economic order. We appreciate the spirit of subversiveness that pervades de Certeau's account, but we find it overly instrumental and optimistic. Our view is much closer to Gramsci's, who recognizes the contradictions and brittleness of both hegemony and agency. 9. Significantly, Frederick Cooper's work claims that the origins of "development" were not exclusively European—that, in fact, it is tied to how the "labor question" was resolved in Europe's African colonies (vide CitationCooper 1992). 10. The key variable in the migrant's decision to move is net expected earnings. In other words, the rational migrant weighs the industry to agriculture wage differential by the probability of finding urban employment and subtracts migration costs from this expected income. 11. In the popular CitationHarris-Todaro (1970) model of migration, the equilibrium condition reads: (LF/LF+ LI)wF+ (LI/LF+ LI)wI=wA, where LF is total formal employment available in the urban sector, LI is total informal employment available in the urban sector, wF is the fixed or mandated wage rate in the formal sector, wI is the wage rate in the informal sector, and wA is the wage rate in agriculture. The term (LF/LF+LI) is simply the probability that the migrant will find formal employment in the urban sector; similarly, the term (LI/LF+LI) represents the probability that the migrant will find informal employment in the urban sector. Thus, the left-hand side of the equation gives the migrant's expected earning in the urban sector. In equilibrium—that is, a state where no person wishes to migrate from one sector to the other—expected urban sector wage must equal the prevailing agricultural wage. 12. The decennial census of India provides figures on the stock of rural migrants (urban residents of rural origin) in the survey year and can therefore be used to track decennial changes in migrant inflows to urban areas. Unfortunately, the census data allow no way of discerning permanent migrants from circular migrants. As mentioned in the text, most estimates of circular migration rely on intelligent conjectures from smaller regional surveys and ethnographic studies. CitationPapola (1997) and CitationSrivastava (1998) discuss limitations of the Indian census data for migration studies. 13. The word "dalit" applies to those downtrodden groups who, within the scheme of orthodox Hinduism, were considered ritually impure and therefore untouchable. Unlike the euphemism "harijan" (people of god) coined by Mahatma Gandhi, the term "dalit" has an explicitly political, anticaste connotation. CitationZelliot (1992), CitationOmvedt (1995), CitationFernandes 1996, CitationMendelsohn and Vicziany (1998), CitationDeliége (1999), CitationMichael (1999), and CitationMoon (2001) ably document the rise of dalit social consciousness and dalit movements in India. A note of clarification: we employ the term "dalit" for members of historically subordinated low-caste groups because this is increasingly how they choose to represent themselves (and when they do not, we substitute the proper term of reference—for instance, "harijan"). By contrast, the term "adivasi" (original inhabitant) does not carry the same positive or political connotations as the term "dalit." Tribal groups do not use it self-referentially (instead, they use their proper group name—for example, "bhil"). And upper-caste groups often employ the term "adivasi" derogatorily. Hence, we prefer to use the term "tribal" in place of "adivasi." 14. For our purpose, "space," in any historical context, can be circumscribed by material social processes that involve the traffic of goods or ideas between sets of people; by contrast, "place" refers to the forms of consciousness with which individuals and groups apprehend and transform particular material spaces, taking for granted that these forms of consciousness are dialectically related to social power relations. This distinction builds on CitationHeidegger (1977,; 332ff.) and the evocative discussion of place that is developed in CitationBasso (1996,; 105–49). CitationCreed and Ching (1997,; 7) offer a related definition of place as "a grounded metaphor." 15. We thank two of the anonymous referees for urging us to foreground the feminist literature on "body politics." 16. CitationParry (1999) goes on to provide a vivid account of a tension between young and old that crosses caste lines and is the result of a generalized disenchantment with agrarian life. He (117) notes that "[T]he fact is that agricultural work is now regarded with deep distaste—especially by the young…even unemployed youngsters resolutely refuse to so much as supervise the work of day laborers in the fields, let alone work in them themselves…the young see agriculture as emblematic of the rustic world." 17. Whereas the Patels ultimately chose to emulate Vanias, the Kolis adopted the Kshatriya model—particularly after their political mobilization in the 1950s and 1960s by the Gujarat Kshatriya Sabha (on the role of caste associations in the prosecution of Rajput Kshatriya identity, see CitationKothari and Maru 1970; CitationShah 1975; CitationLobo 1995). Like Patels before them, the Kolis retained the services of Barots to build Rajput genealogies for them (CitationShah and Shroff 1959). 18. Again, it is difficult to sift fact from fiction in this contest over identities. If anything, the struggle over rank exposes that an essentialist account of caste, one that sees it as fixed in time and space, is irretrievably flawed. 19. CitationBreman (1985,; 1996) does an especially fine job of this in the Gujarat context. CitationKarlekar (1995), CitationMenon (1995), CitationSaradamoni (1995), and CitationTeerink (1995) document the difficult work environment of women migrants in various other parts of India, based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork. CitationPryer (1992) discusses the Bangladesh case. 20. At the time of our field research in 1993–1994, the Lodhas were paid five kilos of rice (dhan) and two rupees for tiffin at the end of the workday. They could make the cash equivalent of that wage and sometimes slightly more performing coolie work in the nearby market town of Jhargram, if such work was in fact available. When they took a head-load of fuel-wood into the bazaar, it usually fetched fifty to sixty rupees (three times the daily earning from farm or coolie work). But the preparation of such a head-load usually involved two days of work by a Lodha man and half a day of walking to the location of sale by a Lodha woman. 21. The Kangsabati canal project failed in part due to the enactment of the Forest Conservation Act in 1980 by the government of India and the subsequent refusal of the Forest Department to allow conversion of forest land into a watercourse. For details, see CitationSivaramakrishnan (1998). 22. We are grateful to the authors for granting us permission to cite from their preliminary record of findings. 23. The name "Vankar" is a synthesis of the Gujarati noun van (meaning "unginned cotton") and the verb kar ("to do"); hence, a Vankar is someone who transforms cotton—a weaver. 24. The figures on educational attainment are drawn from CitationGidwani (1996,; 8, table 1.1). Remaining information is distilled from CitationGidwani's field notes on changing agrarian relations in the village of Shamli in the Matar subdistrict of the Kheda District, Gujarat, recorded between 8 May 1994 and 31 August 1995. Village and respondent names here and below have been altered to preserve confidentiality. 25. Hence, CitationGooptu (1993,; 277–98) describes how the Adi Hindu movement in Uttar Pradesh in the early twentieth century, which gained momentum with urbanization and migration, transformed the labor practices of the untouchable Chamar caste—although she is careful to qualify that the rejection of degrading menial work by Chamars did not translate into a pointed rejection of the caste system itself. In short, subaltern agency can express itself in ways that are simultaneously unconventional and conservative. 26. Field notes, CitationGidwani (1996). Names of villagers and villages have been altered to preserve confidentiality. CitationGidwani used the term "harijan" rather than "dalit" because this is how his respondents referred to themselves. 27. It is important to clarify that we view aesthetics as an aspect of politics. In so doing, we abjure a common view (sometimes linked to the works of Adorno and Horkheimer) that interprets aesthetics as a form of escape from (the despair of) politics. We want to assert the materiality of aesthetics and hence its expression not just in consumption styles but also in the recasting of the working body. Having clarified this, we clearly believe that body politics exceeds aesthetics, because the domination of bodies cannot—and should not—be reduced to aesthetics alone. That would diminish the physical and psychological violence of domination. 28. CitationFerguson (1999,; 95) writes: "I use the term cultural style to refer to practices that signify differences between social categories. Cultural styles in this usage do not pick out total modes of behavior but rather poles of social signification, cross-cutting and cross-cut by other such poles." He uses the term "style" to emphasize the accomplished performative nature of such practices. Ferguson cautions that we should not assume shared cultural commonalities can survive persistent stylistic differences that may arise in situational behavior. Equally, we must be careful not to presume that similar styles signify similar things for different people (CitationFerguson 1999,; 93–97). 29. This body politics of consumption echoes the notion of "cultural production" advanced by Lisa CitationLowe (1996). As she (158) observes, "[C]ultural forms of many kinds are important media in the formation of oppositional narratives and are crucial to the imagination and rearticulation of new forms of political subjectivity, collectivity, and practice." 30. The struggle over attire and lower-caste consciousness of the uses of attire in making defiant gestures is not a new phenomenon in Tamil Nadu. Andre CitationBeteille's classic study ([1966] 1996) of a Thanjavur village contains evidence of similar assertion by young men returned from breathing the fresh air of self-respect in cities where they studied or worked, even as casual labor. The interesting twist in the story is the way the struggle over attire in the 1960s was about violating proscriptions about covering parts of the body or affecting upper-caste styles of traditional dress. Thirty years later the contest is conducted in cultural styles evoking modern fashions and cosmopolitan attire. 31. Dressing in styles considered as "hip" or "chic" in the metropolitan centers visited by migrants in their work-related often to be the most available form of when they to social relations of and in their and (1999) provide of this point in their study of the low-caste of study also notes how low-caste groups rather than consumption in their to assert new identities. to more than of migrants returned the most between and this clearly historical and the of the migration provides detailed information on and returned by to India. The of to a in of a of and from the This and the on field notes for A study is being conducted in one tribal and villages with dalit in Tiruvannamalai District, Tamil Nadu, India. of these villages has been for its location less than from the In to and of a survey of was conducted in villages during and 2000, covering in the villages and in the tribal on migration was in the of these Our on the possibility of within the of is by an different on the part of such who that in fact, to a that from his about the and of the for about to his of and his of of of the of modernity as the of We find critique Gramsci's understanding of subaltern as a of and that was an of power rather than a of This is entirely with his of power as a that bodies and the body power is is no it is, to an account of power that is or a as theories to By the same it is difficult to a that does not serve if this is in sense is it to of and (1999) that migrant narratives in and other of information offer us a way of But this to the that and in their of of in defining as well as This takes the to be of and and their that takes these for if it is to to the hold of of the in subaltern are in (1988), and to move from his emphasis on power and the of agency in his later (the of in is to represent the of these his to from and to discuss the of politically agency is in this a in notion of discourse through the of This simply that the of discourse must be and by those who are as by that This the possibility of during and hence, for the possibility that the of the and is and as an to as But her rejection of even to to the to in a moment of in order to argue the possibility of ch. The work of (1997) on the of As CitationChakrabarty and ch. a or of history on the part of even such as John Stuart that time of development and and to be to before they or could be considered for of or CitationSivaramakrishnan and and CitationGidwani for detailed critiques of migration has a history in the Indian did it subaltern to traditional and of But the of of and has and the of and and granted new to consumption as a of the political in which subordinated groups and can has also with the of state and the rise of dalit movements that the can in a their of changes in postcolonial India make subaltern "body politics" and For a discussion of the see As this to be with the in the which the and of political in the through the of

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