Contemporary Forms of Debt-Bondage and Continuum of Forms of Labour in South India : The Case of the Palamur System
This article explores how the contemporary forms of debt bondage in India are shaped through complex articulations with forms of labour and circulation such as daily wage employment and self-employment. By considering debt bondage, not as a bounded category but as part of a continuum of forms of labour, the article looks at the practices and representations of debt bondage in Andhra Pradesh (India) in a context of changing relations of patronage manipulated by labourers, maistri and politicians-businessmen. This research is based on in-depth ethnographical study of a debt bondage system, called Palamur, in the district of Mahabubnagar, State of Telangana.