Small is beautiful? Rural Transformation and Production Networks of Tea Smallholders in Assam, India

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Hermann Kreutzmann; Privatdozent Dr. Stefan Schütte
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 436422144

Significant changes are transforming the Indian tea industry, where tea production in industrial plantations is partly augmented by smallholder cultivation. These processes can be interpreted as an adaptation to changing frame conditions. The research project aims to perform an empirically informed analysis of the production networks in the small tea-growing sector of Assam. In cooperation with local partners, it aims to explore the distinct patterns of regional agrarian transformation in Assam, to examine changing local agricultural practices and agrarian relations and their impacts on local conflict configurations. Three overarching goals structure the project: 1) The examination of smallholder production networks in the tea-growing sector as key to better understand regional transformation and agricultural change. In the context of a diminishing importance of tea production on large plantations and a sharp rise in small-scale cultivation, historically rooted empirical research in the Sonitpur District of Assam aims to assess and reconstruct the transformation of local agricultural practice and agrarian relations, and to investigate its local dynamics in smallholder production landscapes. 2) Empirical research about social practice in smallholder tea cultivation and production. The social and economic practices of small tea-growing in Assam are investigated in a detailed case study of a local production cluster in Sonitpur and analysed in terms of their effects on local livelihood security for involved groups. The analysis is based on an assessment of local production and labour relations, of the dynamics of land-use change, of market relations and regulations on different scales, of up- and downstream value adding in tea production, and the role of governmental institutions and local small tea-grower organisations.3) Theoretical contributions to the nexus of agrarian relations and peace geographies. In the context of conflictual and often violent social relations in the context of the Bodoland movement, empirical case studies in the Udalguri District have been designed to shed light on the contributions of the smallholder turn to sustaining local peace conditions by means of the inclusion of former combatants in small tea production. In this respect, the project aims to contribute to the emergent field of peace geographies within local debates about peace, indigeneity and agrarian change.These perspectives allow for a holistic assessment of the smallholder turn in Assam tea production as a recent phenomenon. An empirically informed understanding of local relations of production and its embeddedness in local society, culture, economy and conflict promises new conceptual insights into the discussion on commodity chains and production networks and their relations to rural livelihoods and peace geographies. Such an understanding also helps to assess the political, social and economic repercussions of a comprehensive rural transformation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: India
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Bimal Kumar Kar