Enterprise Culture in Neoliberal India ─ Studies in Youth, Class, Work and Media

The promotion of an enterprise culture and entrepreneurship in India in recent decades has had far-reaching implications beyond the economy, and transformed social and cultural attitudes and conduct. This book brings together pioneering research on the nature of India's enterprise culture, covering a range of different themes: workplace, education, religion, trade, films, media, youth identity, gender relations, class formation and urban politics.

Based on extensive empirical and ethnographic research by the contributors, the book shows the myriad manifestations of enterprise culture and the making of the aspiring, enterprising-self in public culture, social practice, and personal lives, ranging from attempts to construct hegemonic ideas in public discourse, to appropriation by individuals and groups with unintended consequences, to forms of contested and contradictory expression. It discusses what is ‘new' about enterprise culture and how it relates to pre-existing ideas, and goes on to look at the processes and mechanisms through which enterprise culture is becoming entrenched, as well as how it affects different classes and communities. The book highlights the social and political implications of enterprise culture and how it recasts family and interpersonal relationships as well as personal and collective identity.

Illuminating one of the most important aspects of India's current economic and social transformation, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Asian Business, Sociology, Anthropology, Development Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

Nandini Gooptu is a Fellow of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK, and teaches History, Politics and Development Studies. Her publications include The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early-Twentieth Century India (2001) and India and the British Empire (co-edited, 2012).