Compounding aspirations: grounding hegemonic processes in India's rural transformations

Abstract

This article introduces compounding aspirations as a key concept for interrogating complex and contradictory rural transformations in India. We argue that compounding aspirations are central to the conjunctural grounding of hegemonic processes of neoliberalisation in lived experience. Taking such aspirations as constitutive elements to hegemonic processes, we question prevailing perspectives on rural transformations in India as we speak to emerging interest in critical agrarian studies to transcend dichotomous views of consent and coercion. We illustrate this argument with select empirical cases from India, focusing in particular on adverse incorporation in corporate agriculture in rural Karnataka.