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

[Diya Mehra]

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


 Economic Transformation in Contemporary India: From Unemployed Youth to Legal Entrepreneur
by Dr. Satendra Kumar, Assistant Professor, G.B Pant Social Science Institute, University of Allahabad
Wednesday November 6 2013, 2 30 pm, FSI Hall, Ground Floor, South Asian University, Akbar Bhavan, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi
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.