Jan Breman is Professor Emeritus at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam and Honorary Fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.
Over the past six decades, Breman has continued to revisit his field to follow the life trajectories of the labouring poor of south Gujarat. The core argument that he presents is that though older forms of bondage and servitude have waned, they did not bring about a substantive sense of freedom. . . Freedom for the labouring poor, thus, remains elusive. -- Surinder S Jodhkar * The Tribune * [Jan Breman’s] shows how the old pre-colonial and colonial period practice of patronage and servitude in rural agriculture has given way to a new form of ‘neo-bondage’ in which the landless labourers are nominally free, but continue to be trapped in exploitative, insecure work. . . Breman powerfully visualises the widening inequality between the lives of landowners, who kept becoming better off, and the landless poor -- Uma Mahadevan * The Hindu *