Land, Labour, and Agrarian Change in Nepal's Tarai-Madhesh

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Fraser Sugden (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK)

Land, Labour, and Agrarian Change in Nepal's Tarai-Madhesh

Name: Land, Labour, and Agrarian Change in Nepal's Tarai-Madhesh
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ISBN: 9781009555593

Fraser Sugden (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK)

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English

Cambridge University Press
04 September 2025

Sociology: work & labour; Human geography

This book offers a historically grounded and multi-scalar analysis of agrarian change in Nepal's far-eastern Tarai. It shows how this region has since the 1700s evolved from a forested frontier home to relatively autonomous Adivasi (indigenous) cultivators, to a feudal economy grounded in landlord-tenant relations, which has persisted alongside a rapidly expanding industrial and commercial sector. The book explores the changing land ownership patterns and distribution of surplus, the flow of labour between agriculture and industry, and more complex interactions with global capitalism. The book thus offers unique insights into both the reproduction and transformations of class, ethnic and labour relations in Nepal during a period of rapid political transformation.

By: Fraser Sugden (School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Birmingham UK)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009555593
ISBN 10: 1009555596
Pages: 330
Publication Date: 04 September 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements; List of Tables; List of Figures Maps, Images; 1. Revisiting the 'Pre-capitalist'; 2. Feudalism, Capitalism and the Mode(s) of Production; 3. Morang: An Agrarian and Industrial History; 4. Conceptualising the Agrarian Class Structure; 5. Ground Rent, the Market and Debt; 6. Surplus Appropriation and its Implications for Food Security and Productivity; 7. Capitalist Expansion, Cash and Climate; 8. Revisiting Agrarian Transition in Morang; 9. Capitalism, the Pre-capitalist and the Peasantry.

Fraser Sugden is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham specialising in the political economy of agrarian and environmental change. He has written extensively on shifting class, gender and generational relations in agriculture, and their interaction with contemporary environmental, political, and economic stresses. He has conducted intensive rural fieldwork across South and East Asia, with a focus on Nepal and the Eastern Gangetic Plains and was based in this region for most of the last decade prior to joining the School.

Reviews for Land, Labour, and Agrarian Change in Nepal's Tarai-Madhesh

'The result of intense and committed fieldwork into the transitions and transformations of agricultural and rural capitalism, of gendered work, of production and exchange, of feudal rents and relations and of local and global capitalist markets, this rich evocation of the flatland society of a mountain state is certain to inspire comparative research, debate and reflections far and wide in agrarian studies.' Barbara Harriss-White, University of Oxford 'A bold and brilliant work by Fraser Sugden. Based on the ethnography of modes of production and compelling analysis of the complex and multilinear process of agrarian change in the Nepal Tarai, the book offers a fresh look at pre-capitalist formations in the age of globalisation in one of the world's peripheral economies. This book, for its unconventional approach, is a rare contribution to the study of Nepal's political economy.' Suresh Dhakal, Tribhuvan University