The exploitation, poor conditions, and precarity in the bidi (hand-rolled leaf cigarette) industry in India make it ripe for the application of the FCTC's Article 17, "Provision of support for ...economically viable alternative activities". "Bottom-up", participatory approaches give scope to explore bidi rollers' own circumstances, experiences, and aspirations.
A team of six community health volunteers using a participatory research orientation developed a questionnaire-based semi-structured interview tool. Forty-six bidi rolling women were interviewed by pairs of volunteers in two northern Tamil Nadu cities. Two follow-up focus groups were also held. A panel of 11 bidi rollers attended a workshop at which the findings from the interviews and focus groups were presented, further significant points were made and possible alternatives to bidi rolling were discussed.
Bidi workers are aware of the adverse impact of their occupation on them and their families, as well as the major risks posed by the product itself for the health of consumers. However, they need alternative livelihoods that offer equivalent remuneration, convenience, and (in some cases) dignity. Alternative livelihoods, and campaigns for better rights for bidi workers while they remain in the industry, serve to undercut industry arguments against tobacco control. Responses need to be diverse and specific to local situations, i.e. "bottom-up" as much as "top-down", which can make the issue of scaling up problematic.
Participatory approaches involving bidi workers themselves in discussions about their circumstances and aspirations have opened up new possibilities for alternative livelihoods to tobacco.
Progress with the FCTC's Article 17 has generally been slow and has focussed on tobacco cultivation rather than later stages in the production process. The bidi industry in India is ripe for the application of an alternative livelihoods approach. This study is one of the first to use participatory methods to investigate the circumstances, experiences, and aspirations of bidi workers themselves.
The cornerstone of scientific research is the publication of empirical research papers, which seek objectivity and generalizability while offering insights into a variety of phenomena. This study ...explored the complexities of producing empirical research papers, emphasising methods to improve research acumen and objectivity as well as maximise generalisation. This paper has explained the process of building empirically sound research utilising a thorough analysis of important elements, methodology, and analytical strategies. It has explored the development of generalizable conclusions using literature reviews, hypothesis development, data collecting, analysis, and interpretation. The importance of methodological rigour, transparency, and critical thinking in developing research acumen and objectivity have been emphasised. By clarifying the nuances of writing an empirical research report, this paper seeks to provide researchers with the tools they need to make a significant contribution to their fields.
Resistance against 'Unfreedom' Dutta, Madhumita
Economic and political weekly,
07/2019
Journal Article, Magazine Article
...it is a deeply geographical story. Mezzadris findings indicate that feminisation of the garment workforce in this region is mostly limited to non-core or ancillary activities, although there is ...now an aggressive push by larger units that have consolidated their production processes to hire women shop floor workers in tailoring (p 55). Emphasising the role of regional actors in producing cheap labour and cheap garments as they try to incorporate themselves into the complex regional circuits of the global garment commodity chain, Mezzadri notes that regional actors increasingly act as their global counterparts by expanding and reorganising geographically to exploit the multiple differences within regions, such as product specialisation, and thereby further reinforcing the complex and differentiated architecture of production and work of the Indian garment mall (p 127). ...Mezzadri focuses on the labouring bodies that are central to the production of the garment sweatshop.
The closure of Nokia's mobile phone assembly plant in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, just eight years after it commenced production, illustrates how corporations can quit operations at a point when it ...is no longer profitable for them to continue, while the impact of such closures on workers is profound. The special economic zones policy of the state actively promoted corporate-led industrialisation promising employment, and creating aspirations among young workers. There was no accountability or labour-centred exit policies factored into the state's industrial policies when state governments welcomed private investments. With the closure of Nokia, not only have promises been broken, but its workers and supply companies have lost their livelihoods and future possibilities of work.
The thesis looks at the experiences of work and life of young women workers who have migrated from their villages to work in an electronics factory in a Special Economic Zone in Tamil Nadu, India. ...Moving beyond the lens of exploitation or emancipation, the thesis attempts to understand the meaning of work and relations that develop around it. It does so by focusing on the everyday lived experiences and practices of women inside and outside the factory. The thesis pays attention to individual stories to create linkages between lives as waged workers in a formal workspace with the informal nature of work-life outside. It tries to understand the processes through which women enter formal waged work in global production sites and the choices they make in their everyday lives, both within the workplace and outside of it; and how everyday social relations are constituted and re-constituted through work and practices of labour. The research finds that the everyday lived experiences of work and life in the factory form a ‘complex web of relations’ to which women grow attached to and from which they derive new meanings of work. While the thesis does not claim that the women were able to transcend the larger politics of gender or labour, it does show that waged work did create possibilities for reworking gender relations for the women. Finally the thesis argues for Labour Geography to look beyond the factory gates to understand the nuanced politics of labour as relations get ‘reworked’ within a patriarchal-capitalist society. It recommends paying close attention to the ‘small-scale geographies’ of workers (McDowell, 2015), their life narratives and experiences, but without losing sight of the larger struggles of labour and global processes, to develop a more grounded understanding of worker’s agency and actions.
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