Journal of European Economic History journal thumbnail
Volume:7, Issue :1
Citations
149 Views
81 Downloads
Share this article
Useful Links
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Journal of European Economic History
2026, Volume:7, Issue :1 : 15-22 doi: https://doi.org/10.61336/JEEH/26-1-2
Research Article
Ethics, Technology and Human Value in a Globalized World: A Literary Reading of Manjula Padmanabhan’s play Harvest
 ,
1
Professor of English, O.P. Jindal University, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh,
2
Research Scholar, Department of English, O. P. Jindal University, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, India.
Abstract

This chapter offers an extended doctoral-level examination of Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest (1997) as a critical dystopian drama that interrogates the ethical implications of biotechnology, neoliberal globalization, and postcolonial inequality. Situating the play within late-twentieth-century Indian economic liberalization and contemporary debates on organ trafficking, surveillance capitalism, and biopolitics, the study argues that Harvest dramatizes the transformation of the human body into a commodified resource under global market regimes. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower, Donna Haraway’s cyborg paradigm, Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist existentialism, Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy, and postcolonial critiques of neo-imperial extraction, this chapter demonstrates how Padmanabhan exposes the structural coercion masked by the rhetoric of consent and humanitarian exchange. Through close textual analysis of key scenes—particularly the contractual agreement, corporate surveillance mechanisms, Jeetu’s substitution, and Jaya’s final act of defiance—the chapter argues that Harvest challenges liberal bioethical models grounded in autonomy by foregrounding systemic inequality. Ultimately, the play redefines human value not as biological utility but as ethical agency. In an era marked by medical tourism, genetic commodification, and data surveillance, Harvest remains urgently relevant as a theatrical meditation on dignity, technology, and justice in a globalized world.

Keywords
License
Copyright (c) Journal of European Economic History
Creative Commons Attribution License Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All papers should be submitted electronically. All submitted manuscripts must be original work that is not under submission at another journal or under consideration for publication in another form, such as a monograph or chapter of a book. Authors of submitted papers are obligated not to submit their paper for publication elsewhere until an editorial decision is rendered on their submission. Further, authors of accepted papers are prohibited from publishing the results in other publications that appear before the paper is published in the Journal unless they receive approval for doing so from the Editor-In-Chief.
J Euro Eco His open access articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This license lets the audience to give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made and if they remix, transform, or build upon the material, they must distribute contributions under the same license as the original.
Recommended Articles
Research Article Open Access
Gender-Based Violence Laws as Economic Institutions: Measuring the Labour Market and Productivity Costs of Marital Sexual Violence in European Welfare States and Implications for Emerging Economies
2025, Volume:6, Issue :4 : 33-44
DOI: 10.61336/JEEH/25-4-2
Research Article Open Access
Child Welfare Expenditure and Divorce Law Reform: A Fiscal History of State Intervention in Post-War European Family Dissolution Economies
2025, Volume:6, Issue :4 : 45-51
DOI: 10.61336/JEEH/25-4-3
Research Article Open Access
Innovative finance for sustainable infrastructure: A hybrid review using bibliometric and content analysis
2026, Volume:7, Issue :2 : 726-752
DOI: 10.61336/JEEH/26-2-53
Research Article Open Access
Integration of Blockchain Concepts in Accounting Curricula: Preparing Future Accountants for a Digital and Decentralized Economy
2020, Volume:1, Issue:4 : 1-6
© Copyright @Banco di Roma, Unless it otherwise mention
Email: support@unicredit-capitalia.eu