Struggling to Save Cash: Seasonal Migration and Vulnerability in West Bengal, India

Related papersSeasonal Migration for Livelihoods in India: Coping, Accumulation and ExclusionPriya DeshingkarView PDFchevron_rightPrecarity as a Coping Strategy of the Gonds: A Study of Insecure and Long-distance Seasonal Migration in Central IndiaSmita YadavStudies on the informal economy in India show how precarious it is to be a migrant worker in an informal economy and how migrant workers are perpetually at risk of being exploited by market forces. They show how horizontal networks in India along the exploited class of labourers have never worked due to vertical social base (Pattenden, 2010). Therefore, they call for a stronger role of the state in organising and regulating the livelihoods in rural India. On the other hand, scholars studying changing labour, land and capital relations in rural India (Breman, 2010) have shown that there is a constant precarious condition of debt that such workers have to navigate and contest. The article shows how Gonds, a Scheduled Tribe population...