Overview
India is developing as a global gold powerhouse. Yet its intricate web of trade and transformations remains largely overlooked in scholarly research. This book delves into the economic significance and cultural currency of gold in India. Drawing on insights from economic sociology, political economy and history, it combines comprehensive fieldwork with archival research to explore the circuits of gold – looking at legal and illegal imports, refining, trade, craft and mechanised production, retail and re-export. Through multidisciplinary research, it relates the roles of gold in the building and sharing of familial and gendered wealth, in the diversity of rural economic life and in women's sexuality, subordination and agency to a range of issues in state policy. It shows how exploring the quiddity of gold offers a perfect plot to deepen our understanding of the socially regulated Indian economy.
Full Product Details
Author: Anindita Chakrabarti (Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur) ,
Barbara Harriss-White (University of Oxford)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Weight: 0.500kg
ISBN: 9781009521710
ISBN 10: 1009521713
Pages: 230
Publication Date: 04 September 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
'Gold is an object of immense historical, economic and cultural fascination, but it has largely escaped the attention of social scientists. Gold in India sets out to change this by using the precious metal as a prism through which to decipher crucial aspects of the political economy of India and indeed Indian society. Putting the spotlight on gold, this book makes a novel and highly informative contribution to economic anthropology and sociology.' Jens Beckert, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Germany 'In this pathbreaking volume the contributors explore the polysemic character of gold, an object that is technical and ornamental, ranging across gifts and commodities, and used in medical and scientific processes. The volume, made up of multidisciplinary explorations, allows us to think of material culture and social life in productive and innovative ways. It is sure to be of indispensable importance to students and researchers exploring the concepts of value and exchange.' Deepak Mehta, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University, India 'Groundbreaking and fascinating! Finally, we have a major work on the multifaceted roles of gold in India's economic life. Bringing together evidence from historical archives, policy documents and ethnographic observations, the eminently qualified contributors from different fields reveal intricate, and often surprising, connections between the global economy, monetary policies, kinship and gender relations, cottage industry and informal trade throughout modern times. This book also lays solid foundation for future research on gold, which is likely to gain more attention given the deep uncertainties in the global economy in the early 21st century.' Biao Xiang, Director of Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany
Author Information
Anindita Chakrabarti is Associate Professor of Sociology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Her research areas lies in sociology of law, sociology of religion, economic sociology with a focus on sociology of work, wealth accumulation, inheritance and entrepreneurship. She is the co-editor of Religion and Secularity: Reconfiguring Islam in Contemporary India (2020) and has authored Faith and Social Movements: Religious Reform in Contemporary India (2018). She was the Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in 2022. Barbara Harriss-White is Senior Research Fellow, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Oxford. Her research interests have developed from the economics of agricultural markets to India's socially regulated capitalist economy and corporate capital; and from the malnutrition caused by markets to many other aspects of deprivation: notably poverty, gender bias and gender relations, health and disability, destitution and caste discrimination. She has a long-term interest in agrarian change in southern India and has also tracked the economy of a market town there since 1972. She has directed an ESRC-DFID research project entitled Resources, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Technology And Work In Production And Distribution Systems: Rice In India.
