South Asian Anthropologist, 2019, 19(1): 37-47 New Series ©SERIALS 37 Effect of Land Acquisition on Social Structure: An Ethnographic Study of a Village in Paschim Medinipur District, West Bengal ARUP MAJUMDER † School of Languages and Linguistics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, West Bengal E-mail: aruptomake@gmail.com KEYWORDS: Land acquisition Acts. Farmers. Land losers. Impact of land lost. Social structure. Kinship. Ethnographic study. Paschim Medinipur. West Bengal. ABSTRACT: In India, displacement of human population took place in ancient and medieval periods but its intensity and spread increased during the colonial period. The all- embracing nature of the colonial state power found one of its successful expressions through the enactment of the Land Acquisition Act in 1894. However, in 2013 that is after 120 years, the Government of India has enacted in the Parliament a new Land Acquisition Act named Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013. The new Land Acquisition Act has specific provisions for carrying out social impact assessment before the acquisition of land by competent specialists. In our study, we have undertaken a micro-level field based anthropological study among a group of peasant families who have lost their cultivable land for the establishment of a heavy industry, in the village Gokulpur under Kharagpur-I block, in Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal, India, during 1991-92. In this study, we have discussed about changing of social structure of the land loser families, primarily from the event of land acquisition caused by the loss of agricultural land owing by governmental land acquisition for the establishment of this industry. This paper also plays attention to the social relations of the land loser with their non- land loser neigbours. † Research Associate INTRODUCTION In the discussion of social sciences, social structure is the patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. On the macro scale, social structure is the system of socio-economic stratification (e.g., the class structure), social institutions, or, other patterned relations between large social groups. On the macro scale, it is the structure of social network ties between individuals or organizations, while on the micro scale, it can be the way of norms shape the behavior of actors within the social system (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner, 2000). Social structure may be seen to influence many important social systems including the economic system, legal system, political system, cultural system and others. Family, religion, law, economy and class all are the parameters of social structures. Social structure can also divide into micro structure and macro structure. Micro structure is the patterns of relations between most of the basic elements of social life that cannot be further divided and have no social structure of their own. As for example, pattern of relations between individuals in a group composed of individuals- where individuals have no social structure, or a structure of organizations as a pattern of relations between social positions or social roles, where those positions and roles have no structure by themselves. (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner, 2000). Macro structure is thus a kind of ‘social level’ structure, a pattern of relations between objects that have their own structure. As for example, a political