Following the police raid on the ‘Muthanga’ land occupation by Adivasi (‘indigenous’) activists in Kerala, India, in February 2003, intense public debate erupted about the fate of Adivasis in this ‘model’ development state. Most commentators saw the land occupation either as the fight-back of Adivasis against their age-old colonization or the work of ‘external’ agitators. Capitalist restructuring and ‘globalization’ was generally seen as simply the latest chapter in the suffering of these Adivasis. Little focused attention was paid to the recent class trajectory of their lives under changing capitalist relations, the exact social processes under which they were having to make a living, and what had only recently—and still largely ambiguously—made them ready to identify themselves politically as ‘Adivasi’. Demonstrating the usefulness of ethnographic curiosity driven by an ‘expanded’ class analysis, as elaborated in Marxian anthropology, this article provides an alternative to the liberal-culturalist explanation of indigenism in Kerala. It argues instead that contemporary class processes—as experienced close to the skin by the people who decided to participate in the Muthanga struggle—were what shaped their decision to embrace indigenism.

Although the notion of the 'adivasi' has come under academic scrutiny and the 'dark side' of indigeneity discourses is increasingly criticized, there has been relatively little attention to the question of why, under adverse circumstances, activists have nevertheless started articulating their political program in the language of adivasi-ness while surpassing the particularistic politics of earlier tribal movements. Explaining the emergence of indigenist politics as a new democratic force is all the more pertinent for the case of Kerala since this state has the Communist movement as an obvious alternative for the articulation of such a transformative political agenda. This article therefore seeks to explore the forces that gave rise to the politics of indigenism. It begins with a discussion of shifts in the structural power context shaping subaltern activism in Kerala-particularly the impact of neoliberal restructuring and the new ideological environment created with the demise of the Communist block. The paper then moves to consider the political dynamics operating within this structural context that led indigenist activists to form a separate political movement. It looks particularly at the sense of both ideological and material disillusionment these activists feel toward the Communist party in Kerala.

With the victory of capitalism and the end of the Cold War, almost all countries in the global south, including those still calling themselves “communist,” have become “transition” countries, competing to attract foreign direct investment and reform according to the strictures of global capitalism. Particularly interesting cases of “transition” are those states that explicitly legitimize their rule in terms of communist ideals, the general alliance of peasants and workers toward an egalitarian society, and whose ideological pillars historically include a pro-poor re- distributive land reform.

This introduction, coming out during the two hundredth anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, discusses the distinctiveness of Marxian anthropology and what it has to offer to our efforts at understanding, and confronting, the complexities of the social contradictions constituted by—and constitutive of—twenty-first century capitalism. The article points out common denominators of Marxian anthropology going back to Marx’s insights, but also offers a cursory social history of the diverse lineages of enquiry within Marxian anthropology, shaped by the relations and inequalities of the context in which they emerged. Finally, we discuss certain crucial fields of engagement in contemporary Marxian anthropology as reflected in this theme section’s contributions.

In August 2001 there was widespread protest in Kerala, a state otherwise known for its remarkable achievements in 'human' development, at the starvation deaths that had occurred in a number of adivasi colonies. This prompted a continuing debate on the meaning of the Kerala 'model' of development for adivasis, in which a consensus seems to have risen that adivasis are the victims of Kerala's development experience and in which their current mobilisation is seen as the fi rst time in history that their interests are being politically articulated. This article argues that such an interpretation is unwarranted and dangerous in that it ignores the present limitations of neo-liberalism on initiatives for the emancipation of subaltern groups and prevents them from using their historical political experience to dynamise their present political initiatives.