Willem Van Schendel

Traditionally viewed as the result of scarcity, van Schendel asserts that poverty is the outcome of unequal relationships between groups of people. Rather than believing poverty is a temporary state that will gradually disappear if the economy grows and resources become more plentiful, Three Deltas explores poverty as an indispensable structural feature of the societies in which it occurs. Accordingly, a solution to mass poverty must start from a proper understanding of specific local relations and how they are connected with rural class conflict, proletarianization, agrarian capitalism, state formation, and patterns of peripheralization. As a comparative study, built on a firm foundation of thorough research and investigation, Three Deltas challenges scholars and students interested in development studies, policy studies, sociology, anthropology, and political economy. "I found Three Deltas to be well written and informative. It contains an excellent discussion of the rise of capitalism and the relationships between endogenous and exogenous factors in the development of mass poverty. The book is strongly recommended for anyone interested in poverty and historical transformation of rural societies in the third world." --The Geographical Review "A thoughtful analysis. . .Three Deltas is a finely crafted study of the roots of poverty in South Asia. It provides an expanded view not only of the ramifications of colonial extraction but of the continuity of oppression in independent South Asia. While the picture it paints is bleak, it is nonetheless one that deserves more studies such as this." --The Journal of Asian Studies "There is no doubt that the author achieves his objective in tracing the transformations in processes of surplus accumulation and extraction in the three regions of his study. van Schendel has produced an impressive scholarly work which will be of considerable interest to both area specialist and political economists." --Journal of Contemporary Asia "An exceedingly competent, well-written, and informative work. . .strongly recommended." --Journal of Interdisciplinary History "(A) remarkable book. . . . The merit of the book lies in the skillful treatment of agrarian scenes in three corners of southern Asia without the loss of local perspectives. . . .a commendable work." --American Anthropologist "Comparative studies dealing with time and/or space remain much too rare in the field of development. That is why (this book). . .is particularly welcome. Such a stimulating book deserves a place of choice among recent works on Asia." --Journal of Developing Areas

Acumulation and Poverty in Rural Burma, Bengal And South India

Three Deltas

Michele Ford

Lenore Lyons

Since the signing of the UN Trafficking Protocol, anti-trafficking laws, policies and other initiatives have been implemented at the local, national and regional levels. These activities have received little scholarly attention. This volume aims to begin to fill this gap by documenting the micro-processes through which an anti-trafficking framework has been translated, implemented and resisted in mainland and island Southeast Asia. The detailed ethnographic accounts in this collection examine the everyday practices of the diverse range of actors involved in trafficking-like practices and in anti-trafficking initiatives. In demonstrating how the anti-trafficking framework has become influential – and even over-determining – in some border sites and yet remains mostly irrelevant in others, the chapters in this collection explore the complex connections between labour migration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

Critical Perspectives

Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia

Over the past 500 years westerners have turned into avid consumers of colonial products and various production systems in the Americas, Africa and Asia have adapted to serve the new markets that opened up in the wake of the "European encounter". The effects of these transformations for the long-term development of these societies are fiercely contested. How can we use historical source material to pinpoint this social change? This volume presents six different examples from countries in which commodities were embedded in existing production systems - tobacco, coffee, sugar and indigo in Indonesia, India and Cuba - to shed light on this key process in human history. To demonstrate the effectiveness of using different types of source material, each contributor presents a micro-study based on a different type of historical source: a diary, a petition, a "mail report", a review, a scientific study and a survey. As a result, the volume offers insights into how historians use their source material to construct narratives about the past and offers introductions to trajectories of agricultural commodity production, as well as much new information about the social struggles surrounding them.

Willem Van Schendel

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