Structural contingencies and untimely coincidences in the making of neoliberal India: The Kandla Free Trade Zone, 1965-91

This article introduces the concepts of untimely coincidences of modes of production and structural contingencies in global capitalism to the study of neoliberalism in India and beyond. I argue that these concepts are crucial to revive a historical anthropology, which shows that neoliberalism is one of several possible manifestations of capitalism, past and present. The analytical gain of such a revised view on neoliberalism is then exemplified by a historical-anthropological account of the development of India's first special economic zone, the Kandla Foreign Trade Zone, from 1965 to the late 1980s. Based on these findings, I conclude my plea for conceptual changes in anthropology's approach to periodising national and global histories of neoliberalism.