Career of a Scandinavian railway contractor in India 1860–1867 : accumulation of social and cultural capital as a success strategy in a colonial context

This study is about Joseph Samuel Frithiof Stephens (1841–1934) and how he as a Scandinavian contractor acquired an economic fortune in the colonial India. The fortune was used for the acquisition of the mill property Huseby Bruk in Småland and also contributed to the Stephens family's strategy of advancing in the then Danish bourgeois class establishment. The study aims to present an individual actor's opportunities to achieve financial success through access to non-financial capital forms. Social capital in the form of important social relations and cultural capital in the form of information, skills, etc., can be used for transformation into economic capital. The identification and analysis of the personal networks that occurred in Joseph's career determines the importance of family networks and professional networks for access to the various alternative forms of capital. Joseph's career in British India in the 1850s and 60s was surrounded by the colonial power context linked to global capitalist progression and characterized by civilization ambitions, technological transfer and dominance. The aftermath of the Revolt 1857–1858 opened the playing field for wealth-seeking risk-takers from Europe. The power structures previously maintained by the East India Company were gradually replaced by the British central power apparatus. The new power relations established a new administration and altered social institutions in the emerging crown colony. The Indian railways became a significant element in the colonial intervention and consisted of trunk lines that crossed the subcontinent. The used source material in the form of private letters, diaries, business correspondence and more, constitutes the research basis for the studies, and are included in the India-related material stored in the Huseby Archives at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden. The results of the study show that network contacts and access to alternative forms of capital became crucial success factors for Joseph Stephen's career and wealth accumulation. The networks were linked to both the private and traditional spheres as well as to the professional and rational spheres and sometimes seemed cross-border. The study has further demonstrated the structures, colonial thought patterns and hierarchies that the individual actor was actively related to, and that affected the often-strained everyday life of the contractor