Geert De Neve's earlier research focused on the changing politics of labour in India's informal economy, and was based on extensive fieldwork in various informal sector industries in South India. More recently, his research examines impacts of economic liberalisation on Indian garment industries, and on the social dynamics of outsourcing. Geert has begun to examine the effects of trade liberalisation on export industries in Tamilnadu, with a particular interest in the social politics of CSR, NGO activism and corporate governance in the garment commodity chain. He is currently carrying out research on the implementation of corporate codes of conduct and labour standards among south Indian garment manufacturers, with a particular focus on the politics of governance and inequality in the era of neoliberal reform.

Geert has a more general interest in the anthropology of globalisation, urban anthropology, and in the study of migration, modernity and social transformation. His publications include:

De Neve, G. Entrapped Entrepreneurship: Labour Contractors in the South Indian Garment Industry. Modern Asian Studies (under review).

Carswell, G. and G. De Neve. MGNREGA in Tamil Nadu: A story of success and transformation? Journal of Agrarian Change (forthcoming).

Carswell, G. and G. De Neve. 2013. Women at the Crossroads: A village study of MGNREGA implementation in Tamil Nadu. Economic and Political Weekly (forthcoming).

De Neve, G and G. Carswell. T-shirts and Tumblers: Caste, Politics and Industrial Work in Tiruppur’s Textile Belt, South India. Contributions to Indian Sociology (in press).

De Neve, G. 2013. ‘Fordism, Flexible Specialisation and CSR: How Indian garment workers critique neoliberal labour regimes. Ethnography (early view online).

G. Carswell and G. De Neve. 2013. Labouring for Global Markets: Conceptualising Labour Agency in Global Production Networks. Geoforum 44: 62-70.

G. Carswell and G. De Neve. 2013. From Field to factory: Tracing transformations in bonded labour in the Tiruppur region, South India. Economy and Society (in press).

De Neve, G. and G. Carswell. 2011. NREGA and the Return of Identity Politics in Western Tamil Nadu, India. Forum for Development Studies 38(2): 2005-2010, pp. 205-2010.

De Neve, G. 2011. 'Keeping it in the family': work, education and gender hierarchies among Tiruppur's capitalist industrialists. In H. Donner (ed), A Way of Life: Being Middle Class in Contemporary South Asia.London: Routledge, pp. 73-99.

De Neve, G. and H. Donner. 2011. Introduction. In H. Donner (ed), A Way of Life: Being Middle Class in Contemporary South Asia.London: Routledge, pp. 1-22. 

De Neve, G. 2009. Power, Inequality and Corporate Social Responsibility: The Politics of Ethical Compliance in the South Indian Garment Industry. Economic and Political Weekly Vol XLIV, No 22, May 30, pp.63-71.

M. Mollona, G. De Neve and J.P. Parry (eds.). 2009. Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader. LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology 78.Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 482.  

De Neve, G. 2009. Asking for and giving baki: neo-bondage, or the interaction of bondage and resistance in the Tamilnadu power-loom industry. In De Neve, G., M. Mollona and J.P. Parry (eds.). Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader. LSE Monographs in Social Anthropology 78.Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 363-383.      

De Neve, G. 2008. We are all sondukarar (relatives)!’: Kinship and its morality in an urban industry of Tamil Nadu, south India. Modern Asian Studies 42(1): 211-246.                             

De Neve, G. 2008. Global garment chains, local labour activism: New challenges to trade unionism and NGO activism in the Tiruppur industrial cluster, South India. Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol 28, pp. 213-240.

De Neve, G., Luetchford, P. and Pratt, J. 2008. Introduction: Revealing the Hidden Hands of Global Market Exchange. In Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 28, pp. 1-30.

De Neve, G., P. Luetchford, J. Pratt and D. Wood (eds.). 2008. Hidden Hands of the Market: Ethnographies of fair trade, ethical consumption and corporate social responsibility. Research in Economic Anthropology, Annual Research Volume 28, pp.324.

De Neve, G. and H. Donner (eds.). 2006. The Meaning of the Local: The Urban Neighbourhood in India.London: Routledge, pp. 238. [Produced in paperback in 2011]

De Neve, G. 2006. Economic Liberalisation, Class Restructuring and Social Space in Provincial South India. In The Meaning of the Local: Politics of Place in Urban India. G. De Neve and H. Donner (eds).London: Routledge, pp. 21-43.

Donner, H. and G. De Neve. 2006. Space, place and globalsation: revisiting the urban neighbourhood in India. In De Neve, G. and H. Donner (eds.). The Meaning of the Local: The Urban Neighbourhood in India.London: Routledge, pp. 1-20.

De Neve, G and M. Unnithan-Kumar (eds.). 2006. Critical Journeys: The Making of Anthropologists.Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 210.

De Neve, G. 2006. Hidden Reflexivity: Assistants, Informants and the Creation of Anthropological Knowledge. In De Neve, G and M. Unnithan-Kumar (eds.). Critical Journeys: The Making of Anthropologists.Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.67-90.

Unnithan-Kumar, M. and G. De Neve. 2006. Introduction: Producing Fields, Selves and Anthropology. In De Neve, G. and M. Unnithan-Kumar (eds.). Critical Journeys: The Making of Anthropologists.Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 1-16. (Equal share in writing)

De Neve, G. 2005. Weaving for IKEA in South India: subcontracting, labour markets and gender relations in a global value chain. In Fragments of Globalisation. C.J. Fuller and J. Assayag (eds.).London: Anthem Press, pp. 89-115.

De Neve, G. 2005. The Everyday Politics of Labour: Working Lives in India’s Informal Economy.Delhi: Social Science Press/Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 347.

De Neve, G. 2004. The Workplace and the Neighbourhood: locating masculinities in the south Indian textile industry. In South Asian Masculinities. F. Osella, C. Osella and R. Chopra (eds.).New Delhi: Kali for Women (Women Unlimited), pp. 60-95.

De Neve, G. 2003. Expectations and Rewards of Modernity: commitment and mobility among rural migrants in Tirupur, South India. Contributions to Indian Sociology 37(1&2): 251-280.

De Neve, G. 2001. Towards an Ethnography of the Workplace: Hierarchy, Authority and Sociability on the South Indian Textile Shop Floor. South Asia Research 21(2): 133-160.

De Neve, G. 2000. Patronage and ‘Community’: the role of a Tamil ‘village’ festival in the integration of a town. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6(3): 501-519.

De Neve, G. 1999. Asking for and giving baki: neo-bondage, or the interaction of bondage and resistance in the Tamilnadu power-loom industry. Contributions to Indian Sociology 33, 1&2, 379-406.

Policy Briefings

G. De Neve and G. Carswell. 2010. Labouring for global markets: CSR lessons from a south Indian garment export cluster. Global Insights No 1.

G. Carswell, J. Heyer and G. De Neve. 2010. Looking beyond the industrial cluster: The impacts of a south Indian garment cluster on rural livelihoods. Global Insights No 2.

G. De Neve and M. Vijayabaskar. 2011. Worker welfare in export zones: Lessons from a garment cluster in south India. Global Insights No 3.

 
Current Doctoral Students:
 

Leonardo Niccolai - Environment Policy and Tribal Livelihoods in The Nilgiris, India

Tom Chambers - Formal and Informal Livelihoods in Northern India

Smita Yadav - An Ethnographic Study of a Mining Enterprise in North India

Suhas Bhasme - The Politics of Water in Maharashtra, India

Titiksha Shukla - NREGA, land and livelihoods in Maharashtra, India

Aleksandar Dimitrowski - Work in post-communist Macedonia

Recent Doctoral Students:

Sancho David - Education and exclusion in Kerala (awarded 2012)

Amich Alhumami - Corruption and Anti-corruption in Indonesia (awarded 2012)

Martin Webb - Boundary Paradoxes: The Social Life of Transparency and Accountability Activism in Delhi (awarded 2010)

Cressida Jervis-Read - Making Delhi Like Paris: Space and the Politics of Development in an East Delhi Resettlement Colony (awarded 2010)

Rebecca Prentice - 'Thiefing a Chance': Garment Work and the production of Flexibility in Trinidad (awarded 2007)

Jamie Cross - India shining: The social politics of mass production (awarded 2007)

Shalini Grover - Poor women's experiences of marriage and love in the city of New Delhi: everyday stories of sukh aur dukh (awarded 2006)

I currently teach a first year undergraduate course 'Ethnographic Methods' as well as a MSc course 'Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods'

Student Consultation

Autumn Term 2012: Tuesdays 12-1pm and 4-5pm

Carswell, Grace and De Neve, Geert (2013) Labouring for global markets: conceptualising labour agency in global production networks. Geoforum, 44. pp. 62-70. ISSN 0016-7185

De Neve, Geert and Carswell, Grace (2011) NREGA and the Return of Identity Politics in Western Tamil Nadu, India. Forum for Development Studies, 38 (2). pp. 205-210. ISSN 0803-9410

De Neve, Geert and Carswell, Grace (2011) NREGA and the Return of Identity Politics in Western Tamil Nadu. Forum for Development Studies, 38 (2). pp. 205-210.

De Neve, Geert (2011) 'Keeping it in the family' : work, education, and gender hierarchies among Tiruppur's industrial capitalists. In: Being middle-class in India: a way of life. Routledge contemporary South Asia Series . Routledge. ISBN 9780415671675

De Neve, Geert (2009) Power, inequality and corporate social responsibility: The politics of ethical compliance in the South Indian garment industry. Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (22). pp. 63-72. ISSN 0012-9976

Mollona, Massimiliano, De Neve, Geert and Parry, Jonathon, eds. (2009) Industrial work and life: an anthropological reader. London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology, 78 . Berg. ISBN 978-1847880765

De Neve, Geert (2008) "We are all sondukarar (relatives)!": kinship and its morality in an urban industry of Tamilnadu, south India. Modern Asian Studies, 42 (1). pp. 211-246. ISSN 0026-749X

De Neve, Geert (2008) Global garment chains, local labour activism: New challenges to trade union and NGO activism in the Tiruppur garment cluster, South India. In: Hidden hands in the market : ethnographies of fair trade, ethical consumption, and corporate social responsibility. Research in Economic Anthropology, 28 . Emerald Group Publishing, Bingley, UK, pp. 213-240. ISBN 9781848550582

De Neve, Geert, Luetchford, Peter and Pratt, Jeffrey (2008) Introduction: revealing the hidden hands of global market exchange. In: Hidden Hands in the Market: ethnographies of fair trade, ethical consumption and corporate social responsibility. Research in Economic Anthropology, 28 . Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, UK, pp. 1-30. ISBN 9781848550582

De Neve, Geert and Donner, Henrike, eds. (2006) The Meaning of the Local: Politics of place in urban India. UCL Press, Abingdon. ISBN 9781844721146

De Neve, Dr Geert, ed. (2006) Critical Journeys: The Making of Anthropologists. Ashgate.

De Neve, Geert (2005) The Everyday Politics of Labour: working lives in India's Informal Economy. Social Science Press, New Delhi. ISBN 9788187358183

De Neve, Geert (2004) The Workplace and the Neighbourhood: locating masculinities in the south Indian textile industry. In: South Asian Masculinities: Context of Change, Sites of Continuity. Women Unlimited, New Delhi. ISBN 9788186706756

De Neve, Geert (2003) Expectations and Rewards of Modernity: commitment and mobility among rural migrants in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 37 (1-2). pp. 251-280. ISSN 0069-9667

De Neve, Geert (2000) Patronage and 'community': the role of a Tamil 'village' festival in the integration of a town. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6 (3). 501 - 519. ISSN 1467-9655

De Neve, Geert (1999) Asking for and giving baki: Neo-bondage, or the interplay of bondage and resistance in the Tamilnadu power-loom industry. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 33 (1-2). 379 - 406. ISSN 0069-9667