Crisis without Collapse: Reproduction of Plantation Capitalism in the Dooars under Neoliberal Restructuring

Abstract

The paper examines how plantation relations persist even in the face of the withdrawal of capital from direct production and welfare provisioning. The crisis has destabilised the plantation as a relatively enclosed economic and social space. However, its hierarchical foundations remain intact. Relations of domination are reconstituted through informal and temporary institutional arrangements that involve trade unions, intermediaries, and local political actors. They regulate labour mobility and manage and mediate access to state welfare benefits. These arrangements enable capital to externalise costs. At the same time, the arrangements defer reinvestment, thereby sustaining the plantation economy in a suspended state. The paper conceptualises plantation closure as a crisis of social reproduction rather than mere economic collapse. The breakdown of earlier paternalistic arrangements has displaced the burden of reproduction onto workers. The state, on the other hand, is reshaping everyday labour relations and political claims of the workers. By situating the Dooars within broader transformations of contemporary capitalism, the study highlights how identities shaped by class, ethnicity, and gender are reworked amid prolonged uncertainty.