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Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India: 1830–1980 by Smritikumar Sarkar (review)
Technology and Culture ( IF 0.7 ) Pub Date : 2021-01-07
Animesh Chatterjee

Reviewed by:

  • Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India: 1830–1980 by Smritikumar Sarkar
  • Animesh Chatterjee (bio)
Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India: 1830–1980
By Smritikumar Sarkar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. 355.

The history of technologies in India has, in recent years, been explored through a variety of perspectives mostly associated with questions of empire, colonialism, and technology transfer from the core to the periphery. Smritikumar Sarkar's Technology and Rural Change in Eastern India is a timely addition to this growing scholarship. Sarkar brings a specific focus to the introduction of technologies "through various channels of colonial interactions" to rural areas in Eastern India (p. xiii).

Sarkar's book starts with transitions in modes of transport, or as Sarkar titles it, "From Bullock Cart to the Railways." The construction of bridges and the introduction of steamships and railways connected rural areas to new industrial hubs, enabling the bidirectional transfer of both raw materials and produced goods. Next, he focuses on the ways artisans—weavers and smiths—in rural Eastern India adopted new technologies, raw materials, and machines that followed colonial trade and adapted their methods to compete in a market increasingly moving towards machine-made products (chapter 2). The next chapter examines rice, sugar, and oil milling, the introduction of steam engines to sugar and oil mills, and how such new technologies and production techniques restructured the extensive network of farm workers, peddlers, transporters, merchants, and financiers. The book then studies two industries—matchmaking and hosiery—established by British-educated Bengali elites and how they imported technologies and expertise to set up their factories, as well as the financial and political challenges such enterprises encountered (chapter 4). Following, Sarkar analyzes the way the railways extensively altered patterns of rural settlement. The railways allowed traders and millers to buy paddy from farmers and sell rice to larger markets in urban areas. The increasing outflow of grains and rice from the villages resulted in extensive changes to the workings [End Page 1219] of rural markets; the consequent unemployment of traditional agricultural workers and rising prices of agricultural products caused an upheaval in social and economic structures.

Sarkar provides a detailed account of the interconnected nature of technological and societal change in rural Eastern India, focusing on the rural economy and how artisanal lives, practices, and environments transformed with the introduction of technologies and new trade regimes. The work falls largely within the diffusionist framework, highlighting the agency of workers, traders, and merchants in their pragmatic adoption of new technologies and enmeshing them within existing practices. Using lesser-known archival sources from outside the official archives, the book provides readers with a good understanding of the various forms of human labor and tools employed in rural artisanal practices, and how different industries within and outside the rural economy were interlinked and interdependent.

Despite details that historians of technology will find useful, this book lacks a critical engagement with the complexities of technology transfer and trade in colonial and post-colonial rural Eastern India. It is largely a descriptive account of the changes in rural artisanal and agricultural practices, industries, and tools rather than an analysis of them. We are not informed how colonialism and independence shaped rural economies and technological change. Moreover, Sarkar sees the introduction of technologies in rural economies as a process of recycling technologies that had become obsolete in the West. He overlooks the fact that technologies manufactured by local enterprises in India, as David Arnold has shown in Everyday Technology (University of Chicago Press, 2013), were also widely available and employed as cheaper alternatives to American or British machinery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The overall argument would also have benefited from a critical analysis of primary sources and the relevance of contemporary social actors. Sarkar misses the opportunity to describe and analyze some of the lesser-known archival sources rather than simply quoting from them and leaving it to the reader to decipher their importance. The book would also be much more useful with a map of Eastern India to give readers a sense of the locations of the villages, cities, railway lines, collieries, and other places of importance...



中文翻译:

印度东部的技术与农村变革:1830-1980年,作者:Smritikumar Sarkar(评论)

审核人:

  • 印度东部的技术与乡村变革: 1830-1980年,作者 Smritikumar Sarkar
  • Animesh Chatterjee(生物)
印度东部的技术与农村变革:
1830-1980年,作者 Smritikumar Sarkar。新德里:牛津大学出版社,2014年。355。

近年来,通过各种角度探讨了印度的技术历史,这些角度主要与帝国,殖民主义和技术从核心向外围转移有关。Smritikumar Sarkar在印度东部技术与农村变革是对这一不断增长的奖学金的及时补充。萨卡(Sarkar)特别关注“通过殖民互动的各种渠道”向印度东部农村地区引入技术(第十三页)。

Sarkar的书从运输方式的转变开始,或者如Sarkar所说的那样,“从Bullock车到铁路”。桥梁的建造以及轮船和铁路的引入将农村地区连接到了新的工业中心,从而实现了原材料和制成品的双向转移。接下来,他着重介绍了印度东部农村地区的工匠(织布工和铁匠铺)采用新技术,新原料和新机器的方式,这些技术,新材料和新机器遵循了殖民地贸易,并调整了自己的方法,以在日益趋向于机械产品的市场中竞争(第2章) 。下一章将探讨大米,糖和油的碾磨,向糖和油的工厂引入蒸汽机,以及这些新技术和生产技术如何重组农场工人,小贩,运输商,商人和金融家。然后,该书研究了受英国教育的孟加拉精英建立的两个行业-对接会和袜业,以及他们如何引进技术和专业知识来建立工厂,以及这些企业所遇到的财务和政治挑战(第4章)。随后,萨卡(Sarkar)分析了铁路广泛改变农村居民点模式的方式。铁路允许贸易商和磨坊主从农民那里购买稻谷并将稻米出售给城市中更大的市场。村庄中谷物和大米的流出量增加,导致工作方式发生了广泛变化 以及此类企业遇到的财务和政治挑战(第4章)。随后,萨卡(Sarkar)分析了铁路广泛改变农村居民点模式的方式。铁路允许贸易商和磨坊主从农民那里购买稻谷并将稻米出售给城市中更大的市场。村庄中谷物和大米的流出量增加,导致工作方式发生了广泛变化 以及此类企业遇到的财务和政治挑战(第4章)。随后,萨卡(Sarkar)分析了铁路广泛改变农村居民点模式的方式。铁路允许贸易商和磨坊主从农民那里购买稻谷并将稻米出售给城市中更大的市场。村庄中谷物和大米的流出量增加,导致工作方式发生了广泛变化[完第1219页]农村市场;传统农业工人的随之而来的失业和农产品价格的上涨导致了社会和经济结构的剧变。

萨卡(Sarkar)详细介绍了印度东部农村地区技术与社会变革的内在联系,着重介绍了农村经济以及随着技术和新贸易制度的引入如何改变手工生活,实践和环境。这项工作主要是在扩散主义框架内进行的,强调了工人,商人和商人的代理机构对新技术的务实采用,并将它们融入了现有实践中。该书使用了官方档案馆外鲜为人知的档案资料,为读者提供了对农村手工业中各种形式的人力劳动和工具的了解,以及农村经济内外的不同产业如何相互联系和相互依存。

尽管技术史学家会发现有用的细节,但本书对印度东部的殖民地和后殖民地农村的技术转让和贸易的复杂性缺乏批判性的参与。它主要是对农村手工业和农业实践,产业和工具变化的描述性描述,而不是对其进行分析。我们没有被告知殖民主义和独立如何影响农村经济和技术变革。此外,萨卡(Sarkar)认为,在农村经济中引入技术是在西方已经过时的回收技术的过程。正如David Arnold在Everyday Technology中所展示的那样,他忽略了印度本地企业制造的技术这一事实。(芝加哥大学出版社,2013年)在19世纪末期和20世纪初也被广泛使用,并作为美国或英国机械的廉价替代品。总体论点也将从对主要来源的批判性分析和当代社会行为者的相关性中受益。萨卡(Sarkar)错过了描述和分析一些鲜为人知的档案资源的机会,而不是简单地引用它们,然后让读者来理解它们的重要性。这本书与印度东部的地图一起使用时会更加有用,以使读者了解村庄,城市,铁路线,煤矿和其他重要地点的位置...

更新日期:2021-01-07
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