Cambridge publishes city girl’s research
Lucknow girl Supriya Singh, a University Grants Commission fellow who completed her PhD in 2016, was pleasantly surprised when she came to know that her research work has been published by the Cambridge Scholars Publishing, United Kingdom.
Supriya’s PhD work has been brought out in the form of a book titled “Commercialization of Hinterland and Dynamics of Class, Caste and Gender in Rural India”.
“There is a great deal of controversy and debate on land acquisition and transactions concerning the economic development of India, particularly the rural parts of the country. This book explicates, from a sociological perspective, the effect of increasing land transactions on social mobility, based on a detailed study of selected villages in Lucknow,” reads the introduction of her book.
“Urbanisation and industrialisation of Lucknow has contributed to indiscriminate rise in the prices of land which has induced desire among peasants to sell their ancestral land at higher rates to builders,” said Supriya.
She did her PhD under the supervision of Prof Rajesh Misra, department of sociology, University of Lucknow. She said the influx of money through selling of land had enhanced the economic status of many. “The role and importance of money has added value to the living standards which reflects that class system is detaching itself from caste system to a certain extent,” she said.
Her research work argues that villages in modern India, particularly those close to cities, are no longer simple and integrated communities, but are, more heterogeneous, complex and mobile, as a result of urban expansion and globalisation.
“It contextualises land transactions in a political economic model, describing the differential relationship between land and the state from ancient times to the present day, noting the different laws relating to land and their implications for rural life,” she said. “With more purchasing power, some have moved from peasant class to bourgeois. It is also leading to downward mobility of those who have lost their land and are left with nothing. With the new economic transformation, enough space is provided to people especially lower caste to move upward in the traditional social structure,” said Supriya.
She said sale and purchase of land had added to the power and status of rural women. “After selling their agricultural land in the village, peasants have purchased new land at other places mostly in their in-laws’ place in the name of women,” Supriya said.
“Traditionally, land is owned by the male member of the family but selling of land provided an opportunity to rural women to own land in their name,” she said. Supriya has previously worked at the Centre of Globalisation and Development Studies at the University of Allahabad.
She is an academic councillor at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and has been selected by Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Commission as an assistant professor for a provincial college. She has published two book reviews and nine research articles in various journals.