ThoughtGallery.org > Sociology of Dispossession, Michael Levien (Johns Hopkins)

Sociology of Dispossession, Michael Levien (Johns Hopkins)

This talk will draw on comparative research on rural land dispossession within and beyond India to suggest some theoretical and empirical coordinates for a sociology of dispossession.

Land dispossession impacts the lives of millions of people and is highly consequential for economic growth, political protest and inequality in many countries. Nevertheless, this social relation has been relatively neglected by sociology. Dispossession, I argue, is a social relation of coercive redistribution that exists in most societies but varies greatly in its drivers, socio-economic consequences and politics. This social and historical variation creates immense scope for comparative sociological research.

Michael Levien is assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. His research falls within the fields of development sociology, political sociology, agrarian political economy and social theory, with a geographic focus on India. He is the author of Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India (2018, Oxford University Press).











When: Thu., Oct. 24, 2019 at 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: The New School
66 W. 12th St.
212-229-5108
Price: Free
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This talk will draw on comparative research on rural land dispossession within and beyond India to suggest some theoretical and empirical coordinates for a sociology of dispossession.

Land dispossession impacts the lives of millions of people and is highly consequential for economic growth, political protest and inequality in many countries. Nevertheless, this social relation has been relatively neglected by sociology. Dispossession, I argue, is a social relation of coercive redistribution that exists in most societies but varies greatly in its drivers, socio-economic consequences and politics. This social and historical variation creates immense scope for comparative sociological research.

Michael Levien is assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. His research falls within the fields of development sociology, political sociology, agrarian political economy and social theory, with a geographic focus on India. He is the author of Dispossession without Development: Land Grabs in Neoliberal India (2018, Oxford University Press).

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