Development and Dispossession: Dalit Experiences and Political Shifts in the Kerala Model of Development

• In Event: Sociology of Development Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Development & Organizations

Abstract

Dispossession caused by development-induced displacements is often viewed as a uniformly extractive outcome of neoliberal restructuring. However, less attention has been paid to how dispossession occurs within welfare-oriented political regimes in the Global South. This paper examines the displacement of Dalits, who are historically marginalized communities in India, during the construction of Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) in the state of Kerala, to argue that development initiatives under a hybrid welfare-communist model produce contradictory and politically significant outcomes. Instead of creating or intensifying existing marginalization, Kerala’s model enables limited economic mobility while also reorganizing and reshaping caste hierarchy and political alignments.
Drawing on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, 45 in-depth interviews with displaced Dalit residents, interviews with party leaders and activists, focus groups, and archival research, this paper analyzes how state-led land acquisition and rehabilitation policies restructured everyday life in resettlement colonies. Land titles and access to new employment opportunities weakened traditional caste-bound occupations and fostered new forms of spatial belonging. Yet caste persists in subtle workplace stratification and symbolic boundary-making, indicating reconfiguration rather than dissolution.
These developmental transformations also have significant political consequences. While the Communist Party historically mediated welfare and rehabilitation, generational shifts reveal growing detachment from class-based party politics and selective realignments toward alternative political formations. Tensions between redistribution and caste-specific recognition expose limits within welfare-centered development frameworks.
By situating dispossession within the intersection of welfare governance, neoliberal growth, and caste hierarchy, this paper advances new directions in the sociology of development and demonstrates how infrastructure-led growth reshapes both inequality and political belonging in postcolonial contexts.

Author

• Arvind Geetha Christo, George Mason University