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.
The Making of Poverty DUTTA, MADHUMITA
Economic and Political Weekly,
07/2017, Letnik:
52, Številka:
29
Book Review, Journal Article, Magazine Article
In its scrutiny of four areas of public services-pension schemes, digital access, justice system and access to land-the report exposed stark exclusions on the basis of caste, class, gender, ...ethnicity, and religion. Class Relational Approach In Labour, State and Society in Rural India, British political sociologist Jonathan Pattenden presents a rich analysis based on his field research in the southern Indian state of Karnataka to show how poverty and the underlying causes of material deprivation are an outcomeof multifaceted and intersecting social relations. Land, Labour and Makingof Poverty Drawing on over 12 years of fieldwork across three districts of Karnataka-Dharwad, Raichur and Mandya-covering 39 villages, gram panchayats, state government departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and social movements, the research analyses the uneven dynamics of class relations at different levels and social settings. The villages varied in terms of land and caste distribution, soil type, irrigation, access to urban labour market, and forms of class relations, all of which have a bearing on the outcomes of people's conditions and their ability to mediate everyday social relations and the state's social policies.
The government claims that the special economic zones will bring in investment, increase exports and economic activity, and create employment. The Nokia Telecom SEZ near Chennai is often held up as a ...stellar success of such claims. A closer look at the figures indicates that Nokia's investment is almost entirely paid for by public subsidy, much of the production is sold domestically, employment generation is below projections and workers are short-changed.
...there are more than 1,000 recorded cases of diversion of forest land for industrial purposes in last four years which clearly violate the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers ...(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006. With the state government squarely behind the project, the environmental clearance (EC) for the Rs 51,000 crore project, which includes iron ore mines in Khandadhar, a steel plant in Jagatsinghpur and a captive port in Paradeep, was cleverly broken into separate clearance processes so that the road is clear of any hurdles in the way of POSCO getting the EC for the entire project. The rest of the thematic papers illustrates the links between deforestation and economic growth in Orissa, and the role played by financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which through loans that stipulated 160 conditions ensured that mineral and forest resources are sold at cheaper prices to foreign companies.
Despite overwhelming evidence of the disastrous effects of white asbestos on human health, India helped scuttle a recent attempt to include it in an international list of chemicals to be placed under ...trading controls.
In the Chaibasa region of the West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, India, an abandoned chrysotile asbestos mine is a health scourge for villagers and former mine workers. A massive pile of asbestos ...waste mixed with chromite has lain atop the hilltops of Roro village for two decades, gradually seeping into the land, water, homes, and bodies of the tribal communities living at the foothills of Roro. To investigate the status of the asbestos waste and its impact on the community and the environment, a fact-finding team made a preliminary assessment. Its findings suggest that the careless closure of the mines and the unscientific disposal of toxic asbestos and chromite waste by the mining company pose a serious threat to the health of the local community and the environment. The preliminary health survey of 14 villages around the Roro hills, with 45% of the respondents being former workers of the Roro asbestos mines, indicates a highly probable link between the asbestos exposures and several adverse health effects such as low back pain, dyspnea, hemoptysis, and blindness.
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