Labors of Division: Global Capitalism and the Emergence of the Peasant in Colonial Panjab

This book explores the colonial origins of global capitalism through a radical history of the concept of the peasant in Panjab during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It shows how British officials and ascendant Panjabis disrupted existing forms of identity and occupation to generate a new agrarian order, leading to the emergence of the hereditary caste peasant as a novel political subject. The book reveals the landowning peasant and landless laborer to be novel political subjects forged through the encounter between colonialism and struggles over culture and capital.

Format: Hardback
Length: 376 pages
Publication date: 16 January 2024
Publisher: Stanford University Press

The peasant has been a subject of intense intellectual and political debate in modern history, often portrayed as a generic group that has existed throughout time. However, this book challenges that assumption by focusing on the transformation of Panjab during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It explores the colonial origins of global capitalism through a radical history of the concept of the peasant, demonstrating how seemingly fixed hierarchies were produced, legitimized, and challenged within the preeminent agricultural region of South Asia.

Navyug Gill delves into how and why British officials and ascendant Panjabis disrupted existing forms of identity and occupation to create a new agrarian order in the countryside. The result was the emergence of the hereditary caste peasant, engaged in timeless cultivation, paradoxically arising from a series of conceptual, juridical, and monetary divisions.

This book goes beyond portraying peasants as archaic relics and reveals them as novel political subjects forged through the encounter between colonialism and struggles over culture and capital within Panjabi society. It questions notions of progress, exploitation, and knowledge and animates the vernacular operations of power. By presenting this history, Gill aims to re-think understandings of the global past and explore alternative possibilities for emancipatory futures.

The book's rich analysis and compelling narrative make it an essential read for scholars and students of history, politics, and economics, as well as anyone interested in understanding the complex dynamics of colonialism and its enduring impact on societies.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781503636958