This volume explores the concept of deindustrialization in post-reform India. It combines macro studies of Indian political economy with the micro analysis of economic restructuring, growth, and precarity in a "flat world" of digital technology, globalization, and valorization of labour at the lowest cost.
The chapters in this volume,
- Use a range of theoretical and practical social and economic approaches to study the complex relationships between deindustrialization and reindustrialization in multiple industrial sectors across time and space.
- Shed light on economic trajectories and transitions following the 1991 economic reforms in India and discuss the role of the state in industrial restructuring.
- Look at the spatial distribution of industries in India, their uneven economic growth and consequent impact.
- Present the macro developments in the area on the labour policies of various local governments to interrogate the reasons for stagnation/ deacceleration of the formal manufacturing sector.
- Examine variations in labour laws across states and the usage of migrant labour across sectors.
Based on intensive case studies on deindustrialization on local, regional, and national levels, this volume opens discussions on the deindustrialization in the Global South. It will be of interest to scholars and researchers working in the areas of development economics, economic policy, manufacturing and industries, sociology and social policy, political economy, labour studies, contemporary economics, and South Asia studies.
Indranil Chakraborty is a faculty member at the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business, Fanshawe College in Canada, and serves as a research associate with "Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time" (DEPOT) at Concordia University. Previously, he was a journalist for The Financial Express and The Indian Express. He earned a PhD in Information and Media Studies from Western University and held a Horizon postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of History at Concordia University. His interdisciplinary research investigates the intersection of Political Economy, Information, and Media.
Steven High is Professor of History at Concordia University in Montreal. He has published a number of books and articles in deindustrialization studies. He is currently the principal investigator of the major transnational research project "Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time" (DEPOT), which examines the political ramifications of industrial closures in North America and Europe with points of comparison in other parts of the world. This volume is an example of this effort to globalize this field of research.
