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Comprising seven edited pieces of detailed empirical work drawn from recent research, this title reveals the dynamics behind the movements of poor people in South and South East Asia and Africa.
Based on a study of working-class politics in the Calcutta jute mills since the 1950s to the present, examines the ways boundaries between class, caste, gender, and community are the products of political processes that unfold through institutional, discursive, and everyday social and cultural practices.
Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.
Portrays industrial migrant workers in Calcutta, in particular in the Jute industry. Focuses on the labour market, and on how migrants have managed to find and retain jobs. "Unsettled settlers" are the migrants who have come to the industrial area, but have continued to return to their villages of origin.