Piyul Mukherjee

Doctoral Candidate, Sociology

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai – 400076

Education:

Master of Management Studies (MMS), 1987, from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute Of Management Studies, Mumbai, Bombay University.

BSc, Statistics, Bombay University, 1983

Research Interests:

Modernity & Globalization; Everyday Life; Urban Sociology

Ph.D. Thesis Area :

The Decline of a City, and Its Impact on Women and Children

Description:
India is seen to have come through comparatively unscathed in the current global recession. Yet a closer scrutiny indicates considerable skew and
heterogeneity in this consumerism and growth story.   The process of urbanization has become exclusionary in nature, with only a few ‘global’ cities with a strong economic base able to raise resources for development, leaving most smaller towns out in the cold. With the formal sector giving way to informal, the ‘non-global’ city appears to be marked by an increasing marginalization and a feminization of the workforce.

I have  recently completed two years of fieldwork in the city of Solapur (population 873,037) in the State of Maharashtra.  The per capita income of this State is among the highest in India, at 39 per cent higher than the country’s average.  Yet, the city of Solapur does not reflect this optimistic figure. Yet, earlier in the twentieth century, it was known as ‘The Manchester of the East’,  the city of mills.

I began by tracing the everyday life of families, intending to study the impact on the lower socio-economic strata, as visible through  retail consumption.  A startlingly clear picture began to emerge – not just of purchase patterns - but the interplay of gender issues, impact on education and health,  of ‘flight’ away from the city, as well as a host of other social factors.  The very topic of consumption was redefined as consumption of social practices, of tradition and  modernity, of globalization.

Previous Assignments:

Director, Proact Research & Consultancy Private Limited, 1994 onwards

A Company specializing in consumer behavior and qualitative market research.



Head of Qualitative Research in the market research division of Lintas
India Limited, an advertising agency, up to 1994

Conference Presentations:

• HAGGLING, BARGAINING & FIXED PRICE POLICIES, The Changing Face of Indian
  Retail, February 2007
  
  Mukherjee, Piyul & Mall, Damodar
  
  Presented at the Worldwide Retail Conference organized by ESOMAR in
  Valencia, Spain. Voted The Paper with the Highest Overall Value by
  attending delegates. ESOMAR is the World Body of Market Research
  Professionals.
  
  http://www.esomar.org/index.php/haggling-bargaining-and-fixed-price-policies.html
  

• Invited Panelist, LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL Marketing Conference, May 2006,
  on Emerging Markets - Positioning for Power: Global Marketing Strategies
  
  http://www.londonmarketingclub.org.uk/conferences.html
  
  

• NO GOODBYES FOR TATA, Attracting Top Talent Into The Tata Group, April 2005
  
  Mukherjee, Piyul & Chandrasekaran, Sriram
  
  Received the Best Presented Paper Award, at the AQR-QRCA Biennial
  Conference at Dublin, Ireland.
  
  AQR is the Association for Qualitative Research, based in the UK, and
  QRCA, in the US, is the Qualitative Research Consultants Association, each
  with members across the world.
  
  

• THE POWER OF IMAGINATIVE SOLUTIONS.Chaired the session -Engaging Consumers
  around the Globe, at an ESOMAR conference at Barcelona, Spain in November
  2005, as part of the organizing programme committee.
  
  

• THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN PACKAGING DESIGN, October 2004
  
  Paper presented at the Annual QRCA conference, at Phoenix, Arizona, USA
  
  

• HOT BUTTONS THAT TRIGGER A NATION, March 2003
  
  Mukherjee, Piyul &  Rajan Krishnan,
  
  ESOMAR conference on Consumer Insights, , Madrid, Spain.
  
  

Contact Details:

piyulm@iitb.ac.in; proact@gmail.com

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