Jayaseelan Raj
Assistant Professor
Email: jraj@cds.ac.in
Areas of specialisation: Politics and Development, Culture and Development, Plantation Crops, Labour, Employment and Social Security, Migration
Education: PhD. in Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway. 2014
Employment: 2014-16 Postdoctoral Fellow,, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Publications:
Books
2022 Plantation Crisis: Ruptures of Dalit Life in an Indian Tea Belt, University College London [UCL] Press, London.
2019 Shah, A., Lerche, J., Raj, J., Axelby, R., Benbaabali, D., Donegan, B., &Thakur,V.Vikas kiChakki Mein Piste Log: IkkiswiSadike Bharat Mein Jatiya, Janjatiya, aurVargiyaAsamanta. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (Hindi Edition of Ground Down By Growth)
2017 Shah, A., Lerche, J., Raj, J., Axelby, R., Benbaabali, D., Donegan, B., &Thakur,V. Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in India. London: Pluto Press/ New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (South Asian Edition)
Chapters in Books
2022 ‘Tea in Troubled Times: Labour in Indian Post-colonial Plantations’, in The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor, 213-223. Sharryn Kasmir and Leslie Gill (eds). New York and London: Routledge.
Peer reviewed article
2022 Postcolonial Caste, Ambedkar and the Politics of Counter-Narrative. History and Anthropology. Early view.
2017 ‘The Tea Belts of Western Ghats’. In: Shah, A and Lerche, J and Axelby, R and Benbabaali,, D. and Donegan, B. and Raj, J. and Thakur, Vikram, Ground Down by Growth: Inequality in 21st century India. London: Pluto. pp 49-81.
Journal Articles
2020 Categorical Oppression: Performance of Identity in South India.
The Australian Journal of Anthropology. Vol. 31 (3): 288-302.
2020 The Crisis and the Retirement: Alienation in Kerala’s Tea Belt.
Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology. Vol. 86 (2020): 84-96.
2019 Beyond the Unions: Pembillai Orumai Women’sStrike in South Indian TeaBelt. Journal of Agrarian Change. Vol. 19 (4): 671-689.
2019 From Labour Contractor to Worker-Agents: Transformations in the Recruitment of Migrant Labour in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology. Vol. 53 (2): 272-298. (With Richard Axelby).
2018 Rumour and Gossip in a Time of Crisis: Resistance and Accommodation in a South Indian Plantation Frontier. Critique of Anthropology. Vol. 39 (1): 52-73.
2013 Alienated Enclaves: Economic Crisis and Neo-Bondage in a South Indian plantation belt.
Forum for Development Studies. Vol. 40 (3): 465-490.
Other Publications
2022 Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka, by Mythri Jegathesan. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. 2019. Journal of Agrarian Change. Early View.
The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India. by Sarah Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2014.
Journal of Agrarian Change. Vol.16, No:2, April 2016.pp. 356-362.
2016 Tempest in a Teapot: Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Labourers in India. by Soma Chaudhuri. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2013.
Contributions to Indian Sociology. Vol 50, 2. June 2016. pp. 240–270.
The Women ‘Strike’ Back: The Protest of Pembillai Orumai Tea Workers.
(Open Democracy. February 2016)
The Hidden Injuries of Caste: South Indian Tea Workers and Economic Crisis.
(Open Democracy. June 2015)
Current Research
Plantation Labour in South Asia
Current Teaching
- Labour and Development
- Ethnography: Theory and Practice
- Anthropology of Development.