[Reader-list] SAU Sociology Seminar: Dr Satendra Kumar

[Diya Mehra]

The Department
of Sociology, South Asian University cordially invites you a seminar:

 

Economic
Transformation in Contemporary India: From Unemployed Youth to Broker to Legal
Entrepreneur

 

by Dr. Satendra
Kumar, Assistant Professor, G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, University of
Allahabad

 

Wednesday,
4 September 2013, 2.30 pm, FSI Hall, Ground Floor, South Asian University,
Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri,

 

Through two detailed life histories of unemployed young men
turned brokers, turned legal educational entrepreneurs, this paper explores the
potential relationship between formal and informal economic activity in
contemporary India. It focuses particularly on the various economic activities
that they both have been involved in at different stages in their life, tracing
their origins and evolving dynamics in order to highlight not only how the
‘formal’ and ‘informal’ often overlap, but also how they can in fact be
extremely intertwined, to the extent that they often directly feed off each
other. At the same time, however, these two stories underline how the
systematic iteration of economic activity ultimately depends less on their form
and more on the contingent articulation of the specific type of activity
concerned, the particular trajectory of the individual social agents involved,
as well as finally the nature of the broader contextual political economy.