The Climate Factor: Rethinking Agrarian Change and Social Differentiation in Rural India

Abstract

This necessitates new approaches to studying agrarian change, which focus specifically on the intersections of climate change with the contemporary agrarian question. Much of the existing scholarship on agrarian studies, however, overlooks the serious social distortions produced by climate change. This interdisciplinary paper examines: a) how various social groups – differentiated by class, gender, caste and religion – experience the impacts of climate change, and design responses to it within agrarian contexts, and b) how climate change impacts processes of social differentiation, patterns of accumulation, and, consequently, agrarian politics. It is based on research conducted in a village in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India, consisting of household surveys and qualitative interviews. The paper aims to provide a detailed empirical account of the impact of climate change on agrarian processes, and on existing forms of social stratification in rural India.