Dr Nicolas Martin specialises in the anthropology of South Asia, particularly Pakistan, where he has conducted research in the rural Punjab since 2003. His research focuses on the effect of patronage and kinship networks upon rural state institutions and explores how the appropriation of state resources by landowning elites not only results in poor service delivery, but also in endemic political violence and criminality. He argues that the landed elite’s capture of state institutions has allowed many landlords to enrich themselves and to wield huge influence over much of the rural population. This is evidenced in landlords’ ability to enforce debt-bondage, command corvée labour and obtain votes through a combination of bribes and threats. Nicolas’ work examines how broad economic and social changes erode traditional ties of patronage and how this process is related to the rise of Islamic militancy in Pakistan. In addition to his academic research in Pakistan Nicolas has also worked there since 2001 in various fields including micro-credit, human rights and earthquake relief (following the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir). Nicolas has been a visiting scholar at Quaid-I Azam University in Islamabad.
Selected Publications
2009, The Political Economy of Bonded Labour in the Pakistani Punjab, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 43(1): 35-59.
http://cis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/35|
2011 (forthcoming), Patronage and Coercion the Punjab and Swat in M. Marsden, The Swat Pathan Revisited. (London: Hurst).
2011 (forthcoming), Politics, Patronage and debt-bondage in the Pakistani Punjab. London & Delhi: Berghahn& Social Science Press.