Compounding aspirations: grounding hegemonic processes in India's rural transformations

Jakobsen, Jostein; Nielsen, Kenneth Bo

doi:10.1080/02255189.2019.1666706

Cited by 23 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Gender and race are mutually reinforcing social formations that differentiate access and user rights (Mollett and Faria 2013). Our cases similarly show how subject positions are structured by social differences such as caste (Jakobsen and Nielsen 2020), class (Dorondel andŞerban 2020) andethnicity (Aguilar-Støen 2020;Lyall, Colloredo-Mansfeld, and Quick 2020;Rasmussen 2020). People must thus reconcile seemingly contradictory imaginaries of community, individual identity and progress in capitalist modernity.…”

Section: Between Subject and Collectivementioning

confidence: 63%

“…Many of our collaborators in the field engage in a continuous assessment of transforming and uncertain rural landscapes, an active "looking at the situation" (Vigh 2009), with a view to acting on the future in the present. At the edge of capitalist integration, the anticipation of future booms shapes contemporary aspirations and real-life choices (Bennike 2020); busts are followed by the nostalgic reappropriation of ruined infrastructures in the pursuit of new aspirations (Dorondel and Şerban 2020;Lyall, Colloredo-Mansfeld, and Quick 2020); industrial agriculture expands (Jakobsen and Nielsen 2020); and rural aspirations take non-agrarian paths (Bennike 2020;Dorondel and Şerban 2020;Rasmussen 2020). All the while, migration and abandonment remain perennial options (Aguilar-Støen 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Agrarian crossroads: rural aspirations and capitalist transformation

Bennike

Rasmussen

Nielsen

2020

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aspirations bring different versions of the future into the present. This introductory essay asks what we can learn by attending to the myriad ways in which rural subjects and collectivities articulate and institutionalise aspirations. We argue that aspirations are conditioned by constellations of power, which shape what can be done and what can be imagined. These visions of alternative futures can be either affirmative or transformative, but will always entail negotiations over the meaning of self and community. This conceptualisation cautions against policymaking based on individualised aspirations, and invites readers to inquire into how rural populations negotiate and embrace, accommodate or reject rural transformations. RÉSUMÉLes aspirations ramènent différentes versions du futur dans le présent. Cet essai d'introduction demande ce que nous pouvons apprendre en examinant les nombreuses façons dont les individus en milieu rural et les collectivités articulent et institutionnalisent les aspirations. Nous soutenons que les aspirations sont conditionnées par des constellations de pouvoir qui façonnent ce que l'on peut faire et imaginer. Ces visions de futurs différents peuvent être soit affirmatives ou transformatrices, mais elles entraîneront toujours des négociations sur le sens du soi et de la communauté. Cette conceptualisation met en garde contre l'élaboration de politiques fondées sur l'individualisation des aspirations. Elle invite les lecteurs à réfléchir aux façons dont les populations locales négocient puis embrassent ou rejettent les transformations rurales ou s'y accommodent.

show abstract

Section: Between Subject and Collectivementioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agrarian crossroads: rural aspirations and capitalist transformation

Bennike

Rasmussen

Nielsen

2020

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Notes 1. See Rasmussen (2019) in this special issue for an ethnographic study of the communal organisation of non-agrarian enterprises in Andean Peru as well as Jakobsen and Nielsen (2019) for their discussion of compounding aspirations, also in this issue. 2.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-agrarian aspirations: tourism and rural politics in Ecuador

Lyall

Colloredo‐Mansfeld

Quick

2019

Canadian Journal of Development Studies / Revue canadienne d'ét

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This ethnographic study examines post-agrarian aspirations and rural politics in Ecuador. After decades of urban outmigration under a neoliberal agrarian order, many rural places have witnessed efforts to develop local tourism economies as a possibility to transcend stigmatised agrarian livelihoods and to (re)constitute communities. We build on anthropological studies of aspiration to explore how visions of post-agrarian futures are shifting the actors, scales and terms of rural politics in the present. Through two case studies, we observe how state actors have come to re-inscribe their role within post-agrarian imaginaries, partially rewriting the terms of state legitimacy in rural places. RÉSUMÉCette étude ethnographique examine les aspirations post-agraires et la politique rurale en Équateur. Après des décennies d'émigration urbaine sous un ordre agraire néolibéral, de nombreuses zones rurales sont le théâtre d'efforts visant à développer les économies touristiques locales pour transcender des modes de vie agraires stigmatisés et (re) constituer des communautés. Nous nous appuyons sur des études anthropologiques portant sur les aspirations pour explorer la manière dont les visions de l'avenir post-agraire agissent, au présent, sur les acteurs, les échelles et les paramètres politiques en milieu rural. À l'aide de deux études de cas, nous observons comment les acteurs étatiques ont reformulé leur rôle en fonction d'imaginaires post-agraires, modifiant partiellement les termes de la légitimité de l'État en zones rurales.

show abstract

“…In regard to subordinated groups, populations, and individuals, common sense is “in part a product of their subordinate and dominated position” (Crehan, 2002: 116). Putting this perspective to work on contexts of land dispossession and neoliberal capitalist expansion, Jakobsen and Nielsen (2020), for example, argue that subordinated classes’ aspirations embedded in common sense may have “compounding” effects on broader hegemonic processes, further disaggregating capacities for oppositional action. While this is a fractured and fractur ing terrain under conditions of antagonistic class struggle (which is to say: under capitalism generally), Crehan also points to Gramsci’s dialectical emphasis on “good sense,” which he famously discussed as a “healthy nucleus” within common sense (Gramsci, 1971: 328), something the philosophy of praxis seeks to reshape into coherence.…”

Section: Assessing Gramscian “Anti-humanism”: Persons Common Sense In...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond subject-making: Conflicting humanisms, class analysis, and the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology

Jakobsen

2022

Progress in Human Geography

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines conflicting conceptualizations of the human subject in political ecology and geography: Foucauldian views of “subject-making” and Gramscian views of “the person”. While Foucauldian work holds that the more complete exertion of power, the more coherent subject-making, Gramscian historical–geographical perspectives counter that, the more complete exertion of power, the more incoherent persons and their class-based collectivities. Outlining incongruities between these approaches, I argue that the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology—with its emphasis on incoherence and fracture–allows geographers new nuance in understanding the human subject, although not without challenges to the actual writing of such scholarship.

show abstract

Compounding aspirations: grounding hegemonic processes in India's rural transformations

Cited by 23 publications

References 47 publications

Agrarian crossroads: rural aspirations and capitalist transformation

Agrarian crossroads: rural aspirations and capitalist transformation

Post-agrarian aspirations: tourism and rural politics in Ecuador

Beyond subject-making: Conflicting humanisms, class analysis, and the “dark side” of Gramscian political ecology

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About