SOCIAL S W S P - Hypotheses.org · Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018 1 ... Senthil Babu, Sébastien Michiels, Laure Pasquier-Doumer, M. Vijayabaskar. 2 Social Sciences

SOCIAL SCIENCES WINTER SCHOOL

IN PONDICHERRY

2018

1 Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018

https://winterspy.hypotheses.org

Table of Content

1. The concept of the Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry ...................................................... 3

2. Detailed programme ........................................................................................................................ 9

3. Plenary sessions ............................................................................................................................. 19

Talk 1: “The Sociology of Labour in India”

Geert De Neve, Professor, Head of the Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex

Talk 2: “The Emergence of the ‘Informal’ in Indian Labour: A Historical Perspective”

Karuna Dietrich Wielenga, Research Associate, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford

Talk 3: “Policy Reforms and Structural Transformation in India: Trends and Emerging

Concerns”

M. Vijayabaskar, Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai

Talk 4: “Gender and Labour: Feminist Debates”

Binitha Thampi, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai

4. Methodological workshops ............................................................................................................ 25

Workshop1 – Labour Dynamics: Conceptual, Methodological Perspectives and Focus on India ............................................................................................................................................... 27

Coordinator: Christophe Jalil Nordman

Invited tutors: Senthil Babu, Sébastien Michiels, Laure Pasquier-Doumer, M. Vijayabaskar



Workshop 2 – Gender and Labour ...................................................................................................... 33

Coordinator: Hélène Guétat-Bernard

Invited tutors: C. Aruna, Hervé Breton, Nathalie Lapeyre, Nalini Ranganathan, Venkatasubramanian G.

Workshop 3 – Labour, Informality and Precarity in India’s New Economy....................................... 39

Coordinators: Geert de Neve, Thanuja Mummidi

Invited tutors: Supriya RoyChowdhury, G.Vijay, Jayaseelan Raj

Appendices ............................................................................................................................................. 47

Acronyms and abbreviations .......................................................................................................... 49

Bios of trainers and coordinators ................................................................................................... 51

Institutional partners and funding bodies ...................................................................................... 57

Organisation committees ............................................................................................................... 59

Practical information ...................................................................................................................... 61

Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018


1.

THE CONCEPT

OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES WINTER SCHOOL

IN PONDICHERRY



The Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry (SSWSP) is a multi-year programme of intensive and

multidisciplinary training workshops addressing theoretical and methodological issues in social

sciences research. The SSWSP originates from an Indo-French cooperation in social sciences between

the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) and Pondicherry University. The school provides each and

every one with the opportunity of knowledge transfer, sharing experiences and research ideas.

MAIN OBJECTIVES

This SSWSP has three main objectives:

To create a highly efficient tool in research capacity-building;

To strengthen the Indo-French cooperation in research in India, through the creation of an

academic network of researchers in India and France working on South Asia;

To consolidate a community of young scholars in India.

Tangible results and outcomes are provided:

Development of a website in English (with digital resources);

Validation through delivery of certificates upon completion of the training;

Editing and dissemination of a scientific, pedagogical and technical booklet.

CONSORTIUM AND CO-FINANCING

Institutional partnership is based primarily on the collaboration between the French Institute of

Pondicherry (IFP, MAE-CNRS) and Pondicherry University. Like the three previous editions (2014,

2016 and 2017), the SSWSP benefits from the scientific and financial support of the French National

Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Research Units Development, Institutions

and Globalisation (DIAL, Paris; IRD-University Paris-Dauphine), the Centre for South Asian Studies

(CEIAS, Paris; EHESS-CNRS), and the Centre of Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (School of

Social Sciences & International Studies, Pondicherry University). The SSWSP 2018 acknowledges the

scientific and financial supports of MAGE (Université Paris Descartes) and the Université of Tours.

ORGANISATION

Preparation and monitoring of the event is handled by a steering and scientific committee composed

of experienced researchers in social sciences research and training (see details of the Organisation

committees in Appendices). The steering committee includes Dr Anne Casile (IRD, PALOC and IFP,

Pondicherry), Dr Rémy Delage (CNRS, CEIAS, Paris), Dr Thanuja Mummidi (Centre for Study of Social

Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Pondicherry University), and Dr Christophe Jalil Nordman (IRD, DIAL

and IFP, Pondicherry).

For the 2018 edition, the local organisation team counts the active collaboration of Mr Subra Roy

Chowdhury (Pondicherry University), Mr Prabha Bharati (Pondicherry University), and the logistic

support of the IFP administration and General Secretary.

https://winterspy.hypotheses.org/

https://en.ird.fr/the-ird

https://en.ird.fr/the-ird

http://www.dial.ird.fr/


http://ceias.ehess.fr/

http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/department/centre-study-social-exclusion-inclusive-policy



TRAINING PROGRAMME 2018

The training runs through five consecutive days and is articulated around two poles: the plenary

sessions and the methodological workshops, as detailed below:

The plenary sessions: for one day (December 3rd 2018) there will be four talks, presented by

experienced researchers from both Europe and India. The aim is to present the state-of-the-

art, and overview of the theoretical and methodological issues on a particular research topic.

The methodological workshops: for the following three full days (December 4th 2018-

December 6th 2018), three workshops à la carte for around 50 trainees are devoted to

tutorials. It will discuss theoretical models, text analysis, analytical tools, survey methods,

data collection and analysis, etc.

Project restitution: the training ends (December 7th 2018) with a half-day of knowledge

restitution, under the form of a simulated research project designed by each group and

putting to practice what they have learnt, and the delivery of certificates to participants.

PROFILE OF THE STUDENTS

A total of 52 students have been selected (out of 180 applications) for the edition 2018.

Gender:

28 female students (54%), 24 male students (46%).

Age:

11 students between 20 and 25 years old (21%), 31 students between 26 and 30 (60%), 10 students between 31 and above (19%)

Education:

M.A. (4) / M. Phil (3) / Ph.D. candidates (45)

Disciplines or research fields:

Anthropology, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, Development Economics,

Development Studies, Geography, Gender Studies, Gender and Labour, History, Labour

Economics, Labour Studies, Political Science, Population Studies, Public Administration, Public

Health, Public Policy, Sociology, Social Work, Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Health

Studies, Tourism.

Institutions (numbers):

India

Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (8), University of Delhi (4), South Asian University

(1), National University of Educational Planning and Administration (2)

Gujarat: Central University of Gujarat (2)

Haryana: O.P Jindal Global University (1)

Karnataka: Institute for Social and Economic Change (1), Central University of

Karnataka (1)



Maharashtra: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (1), International Institute for

Population Sciences, Mumbai (1), Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (1),

St. Xavier's College (Autonomous) (1)

Odisha: Utkal University (1)

Madhya Pradesh: Indian Institute of Technology, Indore (1)

Pondicherry: Pondicherry University (14)

Punjab: Punjab University (1)

Tamil Nadu: Madras Institute of Development Studies (1)

Telangana: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad (3), University of Hyderabad (3)

Uttar Pradesh: Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1)

Uttarakhand: Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (1)

West Bengal: Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata (1)

Sri Lanka

University of Colombo (1)

PROFILE OF TRAINERS

The team of trainers is multidisciplinary and international (half from India, half from France and

United Kingdom), and they are specialists of the chosen theme of the SSWSP 2018. Their bios are

displayed in the appendices.

NAME DISCIPLINE INSTITUTION

WORKSHOP 1: LABOUR DYNAMICS: CONCEPTUAL, METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES AND FOCUS ON INDIA

Senthil Babu History French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India

Sébastien Michiels Socio-economics French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India

Christophe Jalil Nordman Economics IRD (DIAL Research Unit) and French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India

Laure Pasquier-Doumer Economics IRD (DIAL Research Unit), Paris, France

M. Vijayabaskar Economics Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India

WORKSHOP 2: GENDER AND LABOUR

Hélène Guétat-Bernard Sociology French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India

C. Aruna Sociology Center of Women’s studies, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

Hervé Breton Education University of Tours, Tours, France

Nathalie Lapeyre Sociology Toulouse University (CERTOP Research Unit), Toulouse, France

Nalini Ranganath Sociology Head of Department of Social Work, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

Venkatasubramanian G. Sociology French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India



WORKSHOP 3: LABOUR, INFORMALITY AND PRECARITY IN INDIA’S NEW ECONOMY

Thanuja Mummidi Anthropology Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

Geert de Neve Anthropology University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Supriya RoyChowdhury Political Science Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India

Jayaseelan Raj Anthropology Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, India

G. Vijay Economics Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad, India



2.

DETAILED PROGRAMME



One Theme, Three Methodological Workshops

Labour and Development

The major thread of this 2018 Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry (SSWSP) will be to address

societal challenges at the intersection between labour and development.

Only recently, international organisations placed labour in the spotlight of development research and

policymaking (UNESCO, 2012; World Development Report 2013; Filmer and Fox, 2014; OECD, 2017).

However, it is noteworthy that academic and policy studies over the past decades took little hold of

the subject to investigate the multifaceted nature of the link between labour and development,

notwithstanding a strong interest around labour-related issues (such as forms of workers

organisation, involving strike movements and unions) notably in history under Marxist influence from

the 1950-60s onwards (Morris, 1965). A possible explanation for this gap in analytical focus and

understanding is likely to be found within former dynamics backed by academic and policymaking

discourse on development. For example, following the fast capital accumulation-driven

transformation of the Soviet Union from a poor agrarian to an industrialised economy, the 1950s

were dominated by logics of development via accumulation-driven growth. Labour was seen as an

automatic – and homogeneous – complement to capital in this accumulation process. In other words,

labour was considered a peripheral component of the development process.

By the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, the persistence of either open unemployment or under-

employment and the incidence of working poor even growing in less developed economies were

perceived as indicative of an employment crisis due to acute land shortage in ‘overcrowded farming

communities’ and an acute job shortage in ‘overcrowded urban communities’ (Singer, 1970). As a

result, the decade saw fundamental developments in academics’ efforts to understand labour market

duality from both economic (Harris and Todaro, 1970) and anthropological-cum-sociological

perspectives (Hart, 1973). A renewed academic focus on the human input into the development

process stimulated an international policy shift in the direction of welfare improvements by

investment in health and education. Besides, along the closure of large industries, the late 1980s

witnessed a revival in historical studies focusing on the world of work in relation to various themes:

cultural and urban-related dimensions, national migration… By the end of the 1990s, when the

structural adjustment rhetoric had fizzled out, both national and international policy attention turned

towards more holistic approaches to poverty alleviation and redistribution, but it was only recently

(in the 2000s) that the virtues of labour for both economic development, poverty alleviation, social

inclusion and gender equality came to the fore.

Themes and scientific questionings and approaches to explore the complex relationships between

labour and development are now many and call for interdisciplinary thinking. This year, the

objectives of the SSWSP are to expose students and young researchers to research frontiers in social

sciences on the multifaceted dimensions of labour.



Following the framework of the past editions, the SSWSP will be organised according to three

complementary axes:

(a) Plenary sessions at the beginning of the school: four talks will introduce different thematic and

methodological research on labour studies in social sciences.

(b) Three thematic workshops lasting four days: issues related to Labour Dynamics: Conceptual,

Methodological Perspectives and Focus on India (workshop 1), Gender and Labour (workshop 2),

Labour, Informality and Precarity in India’s New Economy (workshop 3), will be addressed from

various cross-cutting angles.

(c) Project design and presentation, discussions, exchanges: participants of each workshop will work

on a collaborative research project using knowledge acquired during the four days of training and will

make a final presentation.

**********

Workshop1 – Labour Dynamics: Conceptual, Methodological Perspectives and Focus on India

Coordinator: Christophe Jalil Nordman Invited tutors: Senthil Babu, Sébastien Michiels, Laure Pasquier-Doumer, M. Vijayabaskar

Analysing Labour Force Surveys (LFS) is at the core of the analysis of labour in dynamic settings. This

workshop will consist of providing the trainees with the essential tool box for working on the various

dimensions of labour using LFSs, given official data scarcity and imperfections. The training provides

knowledge on how to establish a labour profile to monitor labour conditions. This includes: formal

presentations of labour transformation and dynamics in India; identifying the population of interest

and collecting labour data through a case study in Tamil Nadu; understanding how to manage a survey

using the statistical package STATA; producing and discussing simple labour statistics; identifying

vulnerable groups of workers using decent work indicators and, finally, performing basic statistical

analysis, such as manipulating earnings and conducting basic analysis of labour indicators. The

workshop will end with a group work aiming at designing a research project based on the provided

material.

Workshop 2 – Gender and Labour

Coordinator: Hélène Guétat-Bernard Invited tutors: C. Aruna, Hervé Breton, Nathalie Lapeyre, Nalini Ranganathan, Venkatasubramanian G.

This workshop will take a conceptual and methodological approach on gender and labour-related

issues, based on the contributions of labour sociology, development studies and socio-economics. It

will mobilise both Indian and French theoretical works and examples, and begin with an analysis of

major debates led by the sociology of gender within the discipline of labour sociology. The workshop

will study how gender studies have crossed all fields of labour sociology and contributed to renew the

definition of labour and its analysis on the basis of the theoretical challenge of articulating the

sociology of both labour and family. The objective will be to understand the link between production

analysis and gender relations within institutions, and to provide methods to examine practices and

skills. Across French and Indian examples, the workshop will thus discuss about the place of women



and men at work in social and economic organisations, about gender divisions at work, and about job

systems organisation to understand how labour is an effective way to understand gender relations.

The workshop will end with a group work aiming at designing a research project based on the provided

material.

Workshop 3 – Labour, Informality and Precarity in India’s New Economy

Coordinators: Geert de Neve, Thanuja Mummidi Invited tutors: Supriya RoyChowdhury, G.Vijay, Jayaseelan Raj

This workshop will explore some of the continuities and changes in the ways in which labour is

recruited and deployed, and discuss some of the wider transformations in the nature of India’s

capitalist economy that have impacted on existing labour relations. Particular attention will be paid

to the ways in which opportunities and constraints are shaped by caste, gender and other markers of

social identity. In addition, the workshop will also focus on individual experiences of workers across

sectors and industries, and the new – neoliberal – subjectivities that are emerging in the context of

new employment opportunities, such as in the IT and service sectors. It will consider more

individualised forms of resistance as well as collective forms of organising and action. Finally, the

workshop will reflect on the methodology and ethics of researching informal labour in contemporary

India, considering the strengths of empirically grounded and ethnographic approaches, as well as the

challenges and limitations that they produce. The workshop will end with a group work aiming at

designing a research project based on the provided material.

REFERENCES CITED

OECD. 2017. Unlocking the Potential of Youth Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: From Subsistence to Performance. OECD Development Centre, Paris.

UNESCO. 2012. Youth and Skills. Putting Education to Work. Education for All Global Monitoring Report. Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002180/218003e.pdf

World Bank. 2012. World Development Report 2013: Jobs. World Development Report. Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11843

Filmer, D., Fox, L. 2014. Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa Development Series. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi: 10.1596/978-1-4648-0107-5.

Singer, A.W. 1970. Dualism Revisited: A New Approach to the Problems of the Dual Society in Developing Countries. The Journal of Development Studies 7(1): 60-75.

Harris, J., Todaro, M. 1970. Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-sector Analysis. American Economic Review 40: 126-142.

Hart, K. 1973. Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana. Journal of Modern African Studies 11(1): 61-89.

Morris, D. 1965. The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India: A Study of the Bombay Cotton Mills, 1854-1947.University of California Press.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002180/218003e.pdf

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11843



Programme

Sunday 2nd December PARTICIPANTS ARRIVAL

Monday 3rd December PLENARY SESSIONS

10:00-11:00 Registration Tea/Coffee break 11:30-13:00 Formal Inaugural of the Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018

Welcome Address

Prof. Venkata Raghotam, Dean, School of Social Sciences and International Studies, Pondicherry University Presentation of the Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018

Dr Thanuja Mummidi (CSSE & IP, Pondicherry University), Dr Anne Casile (IRD, PALOC & IFP), Dr Rémy Delage (CNRS, CEIAS), Dr Christophe Jalil Nordman (IRD, DIAL & IFP) Inaugural Address

Madame Catherine Suard, Honourable French Consule Générale in Pondicherry and Chennai, Consulat Général de France in Pondicherry Presidential Address

Prof. Gurmeet Singh, Honourable Vice-Chancellor, Pondicherry University Vote of thanks:

Prof. Frédéric Landy, Director, French Institute of Pondicherry

Lunch break

14:00-14:45 Plenary talk 1


“The Sociology of Labour in India”


Karuna Dietrich Wielenga, Research Associate, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies,

University of Oxford

“The Emergence of the ‘Informal’ in Indian Labour: A Historical Perspective”

Tea/Coffee break





“Policy Reforms and Structural Transformation in India: Trends and Emerging Concerns”


Binitha Thampi, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai

“Gender and Labour: Feminist Debates”

17:15-17:45 Synthesis and presentation of the organisation of the week

Tuesday 4th December METHODOLOGICAL WORKSHOPS

9:00-12:30

Workshop1 - Labour Dynamics: Conceptual, Methodological Perspectives and Focus on India Coordinator: Christophe Jalil Nordman Invited tutors: Senthil Babu, Sébastien Michiels, Laure Pasquier-Doumer, M. Vijayabaskar

Workshop 2 - Gender and Labour Coordinator: Hélène Guétat-Bernard Invited tutors: C. Aruna, Hervé Breton, Nathalie Lapeyre, Nalini Ranganathan, Venkatasubramanian G.

Workshop 3 - Labour, Informality and Precarity in India’s New Economy Coordinators: Geert de Neve, Thanuja Mummidi Invited tutors: Supriya RoyChowdhury, G.Vijay, Jayaseelan Raj

Lunch break

14:00-17:00

Continued

Wednesday 5th December METHODOLOGICAL WORKSHOPS

9:00-12:30

Continued

Lunch break

14:00-17:00

Continued



Thursday 6th December METHODOLOGICAL WORKSHOPS

9:00-12:30

Continued

Lunch break

14:00-18:00

Continued

Group work initiation: preparation of project restitution supervised by the trainers

Friday 7th December FINAL DAY

9:00-11:00

Group work: preparation of project restitution supervised by the trainers Tea/Coffee break 11:30-13:00

Group work: preparation of project restitution supervised by the trainers

Lunch break

14:00-15:30

Group work: preparation of project restitution supervised by the trainers Tea/Coffee break 16:00-18:00

Project presentation by trainees (25 minutes per presentation)

Valedictory Address by Prof. Frédéric Landy, Director of the French Institute of Pondicherry

Delivery of certificates

Feedback from resource persons, students and scientific committee

Vote of thanks 18:30-22:00

Cocktail dinner at the French Consulate of Pondicherry



3.

PLENARY SESSIONS



Summaries

Talk 1: “The Sociology of Labour in India”


This lecture gives an overview of some of the main areas of research in the sociology of labour in contemporary India. Starting from the relationships implicated in jajmani labour, in the agricultural economy and in bonded labour, the lecture goes on to explore the study of industrial labour in India, focusing on the ways in which labour in factories and workshops has been researched and conceptualised in the sociology, ethnography and history of Indian labour. It addresses questions of class, consciousness and collective action, as well as the ways in which labour relations and the informality of the economy have been shaped by the nature of industrial capitalism on the subcontinent. Finally, the lecture introduces some reflections on new and emerging sites of labour -such as SEZs, the IT industry and the service economy - and asks some questions about the labour processes, subjectivities and politics that mark these new sites of employment today. Selected References Selected references

Bhattacharyya, R. and K. Sanyal 2011. “Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labour and Exclusion in Post-colonial Urbanisation”. Economic and Political Weekly 46(31): 41–48.

Breman, Jan, I. Guérin and A. Prakash (eds.) 2009. India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

De Neve, Geert 2019 (forthcoming). “The Sociology of Labour in India”, in Srivastava, Sanjay, Abraham, Janaki and Arif, Yasmeen (eds.), Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. Delhi: SAGE Publications.

De Neve, Geert 2005. The Everyday Politics of Labour: Working Lives in India’s Informal Economy. New Delhi: Social Science Press and Berghahn.

Gooptu, Nandini (ed.) 2013. Enterprise Culture in Neoliberal India: Studies in Youth, Class, Work and Media. London: Routledge.

Sanyal, K. and R. Bhattacharyya 2009. “Beyond the Factory: Globalisation, Informalisation of Production and the New Locations of Labour”. Economic & Political Weekly 44 (22): 35-44.

*****

Talk 2: “The Emergence of the Informal in Indian Labour: A Historical Perspective”

Karuna Dietrich Wielenga, Research Associate, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford

Since the eighties the large ‘informal’ economy in India has received considerable attention from academics, particularly in the disciplines of anthropology and economics. The trend of greater informalisation of labour since the libreralisation of the economy beginning in the 1990s has also been a subject of research. However, in most of this work the ‘informal’ sector itself (or the formal-informal divide) is taken as a given. It is considered to be a remnant of the past. As a historian I try to



track the emergence of the ‘informal’ sector or the formal/informal divide, rather than take it for granted. The informal sector has been defined in several ways, with the absence of the strate from labour regulation being considered as one of its defining characteristics. Rather, labour in the informal sector is seen to be regulated by social structures such as caste and gender. Far from being absent I argue that the state played a fundamental role in creating the formal-informal dichotomy, especially through the laws it enacted. Most of the laws providing protection for labour emerged in the first half of the twentieth century and were crystalised around the time of independence. Similarly state policies towards different kinds of industries (small scale vs large scale for example) were also formulated in this period. I examine the enactment of a bunch of laws in Madras province in the late 1940s, ostensibly aimed at protecting workers, and their subsequent implementation by the Madras government. The architecture of these laws and the ways in which they were implemented (or not implemented) led to the exclusion of workers from small unorganised industries (such as beedi making, arecanut processing, handloom weaving and tanning) from legal protection. I explore the ramifications of this exclusion, and argue that the formal-informal divide was the outcome of a complex political struggle between employers, workers' unions and the state during this formative period. Selected references

Barbara Harriss-White 2003. India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jan Breman 1999. “The study of industrial labour in post colonial India - The informal sector: a concluding review” in Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s) 33(1-2).

M. R. Anderson 1993. “Work Construed: Ideological Origins of Labour Law in British India 10 1918” in Peter Robb (ed), Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India. Delhi: OUP.

Prabhu Mohapatra 2004. “Regulated Informality: Legal construction of labour relation in colonial India, 1800-1926” in Jan Lucassen and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (eds.), Workers in the informal sector: Studies in labour history, 1800-2000. Delhi: Macmillan Publishers.

*****

Talk 3: “Policy Reforms and Structural Transformation in India: Trends and Emerging Concerns”


A key premise of development economics is the inevitability of structural transformation in the economy if economies/countries are to ‘develop’. The share of agricultural sector, as a source of income and employment, has to necessarily fall if labour productivities and by inference, incomes can increase for a large proportion of the population. This is based on both historical models of transformation that took place in the advanced capitalist economies and theoretical justifications based on such historical evidence. At present however, there is a realisation that most low income or late growing countries have failed to make the transformation despite pursuit of different types of state intervention. India is no exception. Despite registering one of the highest growth rates in the world for close to one and a half decade, the inability to structurally transform is manifesting in the form of ‘jobless growth’. In this talk, I map the extent of structural changes that have taken place in the Indian economy since the economic reforms of the early 1990s. I then map the emerging trends in the Indian labour market across sectors and by quality of employment. In the next segment of the presentation, I engage with the kinds of policy interventions undertaken to address the phenomenon of ‘jobless growth’ and the limits of such intervention based on secondary literature/data and my



own fieldwork in the Sriperumbudur region. In the final section, I relate this empirical evidence to emerging global debates on the possibility and desirability of such transformation and new solutions on offer such as the Universal Basic Income (UBI). Selected References

Chatterjee, P. 2008. “Democracy and Economic Transformation in India”, Economic & Political Weekly

43(16): 53-62.

Dorin, B. 2017. “India and Africa in the Global Agricultural System (1960-2050): Towards a New

Sociotechnical Regime?” Economic & Political Weekly 52(25 & 26): 5-13.

Ferguson, J. 2015. “Give a man a fish: Reflections on the new politics of distribution. Duke University

Press.

Li, M.T. 2009. Exit from agriculture: a step forward or a step backward for the rural poor?', The

Journal of Peasant Studies 36(3): 629-36.

Vijayabaskar, M. 2017. The Agrarian Question amidst Popular Welfare: Interpreting Tamil Nadu’s

Emerging Rural Economy, Economic & Political Weekly 52(46): 67-72.

*****

Talk 4: “Gender and Labour: Feminist Debates” Binitha Thampi, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai

The presentation will focus on select feminist theorisations and conceptualisations in the domain of Gender and Labour. As an introduction, I will provide the history of feminist movements in the West that articulated and raised the question of invisibility of women in economic production and in the process of development itself. The feminist critique of undervaluing and undercounting of women’s work in the official enumeration exercises, specificities of women’s work in terms of the multiplicity of tasks and intensity of labour time, the interconnections between economically productive and reproductive (social and biological) labour will be discussed. Various methodological approaches evolved to capture these specificities of women’s work will be dealt. I will also discuss the Domestic Labour Debate that intellectually contributed to the question of recognising women’s work. An overview of debates on women’s work in the Indian context will also be provided.

Selected References

Custers, P. 2012. Capital Accumulation and Women’s Labour in Asian Economies. Monthly Review Press.

Elson, D. 1999. “Labour Market as Gendered Institutions: Equality, Efficiency and Empowerment Issues”, World Development 27(3): 611- 627.

Kabeer, N. 1994. Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London: New York: Verso.

Swaminathan, P. 2012. Women and Work. New Delhi: Oriented Blackswan Private Limited.



4.

WORKSHOPS



Workshop 1

Labour Dynamics:

Conceptual, Methodological Perspectives and Focus on India

Coordinator:

Christophe Jalil Nordman

Economist (IRD, DIAL Research Unit, and French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry)

Invited Tutors:

Senthil Babu

Historian (French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry)

Sébastien Michiels

Socio-economist (French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry)

Laure Pasquier-Doumer

Economist (IRD, DIAL Research Unit, Paris, France)

M. Vijayabaskar

Economist (Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai)

Argument-Purpose

Only recently, international organisations placed labour in the spotlight of development research and

policymaking (UNESCO, 2012; World Development Report 2013; Filmer et Fox, 2014; OECD, 2017).

However, the past decades have not seen massive development of academic and policy studies on

the various dimensions of labour. This is mainly due to scarcity of appropriate high-quality

employment data in developing countries. Availability of data on employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

(SSA), but also in some South Asian and South-East Asian countries, is particularly poor (Margolis,

Newhouse and Weber, 2010). For instance, the annual report on employment produced by the ILO

(2010) showed that, for the period 1991-2008, only 11 out of 45 SSA countries, and 16 out of 29 Asian

countries, were able to provide statistics on unemployment for at least 3 years, while 16 countries

were unable to compile even new employment data for the entire period. Not surprisingly, Labour

Force Surveys (LFS) from some of the poorest developing countries were virtually absent, even

though these types of surveys already constituted the main source of data for this field of research in

the rest of the world.

The scarcity of appropriate representative surveys from developing countries made it difficult for

researchers to analyse some of the most interesting and policy-relevant issues that make these



countries’ labour starkly different from that in developed countries (Dimova and Nordman, 2014).

First, there are institutional issues such as weak labour protection and social security, as well as

problematic taxation and its links to corruption, which create a wedge between formal, informal

employment and subsequently labour productivity and worker welfare. The informal sector

(production and employment that takes place in unincorporated small or unregistered enterprises)

represents 50-80 percent of urban employment and informal employment (employment without

legal and social protection) is more than half of non-agricultural employment in most developing

regions, and even reaches 84 percent of total non-agricultural employment in India (Chen, 2014).

Secondly, informal social networks often are the primary source of labour market information and

capital for starting up small business and accessing wage jobs. In the absence of formal

intermediaries in the labour market, social networks hence become employers’ sole source of

information for prospective employees, thereby leading to possible reproduction of the societies’

inequalities and discriminations practices. Thirdly, there are seasonal fluctuations and other

peculiarities of the agricultural labour market that make the usual 7-day or yearly reference periods

used in Living Standards Measurement Surveys fairly irrelevant. Last, some categories of workers,

such as domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers, are often not

even identified in labour statistics. In India, domestic workers, home-based workers and street

vendors comprise one-third of urban employment (Chen, 2014), while standard statistics ignore the

contribution of family workers, who comprise over 25 percent of all self-employed in developing

countries (Margolis, 2014).

Analysing Labour Force Surveys (LFS) in developing countries is hence at the core of the analysis of

labour in dynamic settings. This workshop will consist of providing the trainees with the essential tool

box for working on the various dimensions of labour using LFSs, given official data scarcity and

imperfections. The four days training provides knowledge on how to establish a labour profile to

monitor labour conditions. This includes: formal presentations of labour transformation and

dynamics in India; identifying the population of interest and collecting labour data through a case

study in Tamil Nadu; understanding how to manage a survey using the statistical package STATA

(including reading and using a LFS questionnaire, understanding the sampling design of the survey),

producing and discussing simple labour statistics (in particular knowing which ones could be the most

relevant, in particular in India); identifying vulnerable groups of workers using decent work indicators

and, finally, performing basic analysis, such as manipulating earnings, decomposing unequal

distribution of important indicators, and conducting basic analysis of unemployment. The workshop

will end with a group work aiming at designing a research project based on the provided material.



Workshop 1 Schedule

DAY 1 – TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4th

9:00-9:30

Opening Speech

Introduction and objectives of the workshop

Presentation of trainers and participants

9:30-11:00 Concepts and tools for analysing labour in a developing country context (1)

11:00-11:15 Coffee/Tea Break

11:15-12:30 Concepts and tools for analysing labour in a developing country context (2)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:15 An overview of labour transformation in India

15:15-15:30 Coffee/Tea break

15:30-17:00 A case study of a labour force survey: the NEEMSIS in Tamil Nadu

DAY 2 – WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5th

9:00-11:15 Measuring labour using survey data: getting started with Stata (1)


11:30-12:30 Measuring labour using survey data: getting started with Stata (2)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:15 Analysing labour using survey data with Stata (1)


15:30-17:00 Analysing labour using survey data with Stata (2)

DAY 3 – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6th

9:00-10:30 Designing a research project on labour issues given existing literature

10:30-12:00 Identifying the population of interest and collecting data

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-18:00 Group work on collaborative research project

DAY 4 – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7th

9:00-11:00 Group work (continued)



12:30-14:00 Lunch



15:45-18:00

Restitution of group work projects

Discussion

Valedictory



Readings

Breman, J. 1996. Footloose Labour: Working in India‘s Informal Economy. Cambridge University Press,

278 p.

Chen, M. 2014. Informal Employment and Development: Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion.

European Journal of Development Research 26(4), pp. 397-418.

Dimova, R., Nordman, C.J. (eds.) 2014. Understanding the Links Between Labour and Economic

Development. European Journal of Development Research Special Issue, 26(4), pp. 387-396.

Filmer, D., Fox, L. 2014. Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa Development Series.

Washington, DC: World Bank. doi: 10.1596/978-1-4648-0107-5.

Guérin, I., Venkatasubramanian, G., Michiels, S. 2015. Labour in Contemporary South India. In Harriss-

White B. et Heyer J. (eds.), Indian Capitalism in Development, Abingdon, Routledge.

Harriss-White, B. 2003. India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Cambridge University Press.

307p.

ILO 2010. Global Employment Trends for Youth. Special Issue on the Impact of the Global Economic

Crisis on Youth. Geneva: International Labor Office.

Margolis, D.N. 2014. By Choice and by Necessity: Entrepreneurship and Self-employment in the

Developing World. European Journal of Development Research 26(4), pp. 419-436.

Margolis, D.N., Newhouse, D., Weber, M. 2010. Improving Policy Making through Better Data.

Mimeo, Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

OECD. 2017. Unlocking the Potential of Youth Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: From

Subsistence to Performance. OECD Development Centre, Paris, 79 pages.

UNESCO. 2012. Youth and Skills. Putting Education to Work. Education for All Global Monitoring

Report. Paris: UNESCO. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002180/218003e.pdf

Vijayabaskar, M. 2010. Saving Agricultural Labour from Agriculture: SEZs and Politics of Silence in

Tamil Nadu. Economic and Political Weekly 45(6), pp. 36-43.

Vijayabaskar, M., Kalaiyarasan, A. 2014. Caste as Social Capital. The Tiruppur Story. Economic and

Political Weekly 49(10), pp. 34-38.

World Bank. 2012. World Development Report 2013: Jobs. World Development Report. Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11843

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002180/218003e.pdf

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/11843



Workshop 1 student profile

Name Level University Field of

research Email

1 Aditya Samdershi Ph.D.

candidate NEUPA, New Delhi

Labour Economics

[email protected]

2 Anagha S Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University History [email protected]

3 Arya Thomas Ph.D.

candidate

International Institute for Population Sciences,

Mumbai

Population Studies

[email protected]

4 Arun Kumar Bairwa Ph.D.

candidate IIT Indore Economics [email protected]

5 Ashok S Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Political Science [email protected]

6 Avinash Kumar Ph.D.

candidate Jawaharlal Nehru

University Economics [email protected]

7 Dhananjay Kumar Ph.D.

candidate University of Hyderabad Economics

[email protected]

8 Hilalulla K.B Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Social Work [email protected]

9 Leena

Bhattacharya Ph.D.

candidate IGIDR, Mumbai

Development Economics

[email protected]

10 Mohd. Jafar Ph.D.

candidate Central University of

Gujarat Sociology [email protected]

11 Nitin Bisht Ph.D.

candidate IIT Roorkee Social Work [email protected]

12 Pragati Pandey M.Phil. NEUPA, New Delhi Geography [email protected]

13 Sarita Kumari Ph.D.


University Social Sciences

in Health [email protected]

14 Satyam Mishra M.Phil. University of Delhi Geography [email protected]

15 Simran Ph.D.


University Geography [email protected]

16 Sreekumar NC Ph.D.


University Social Sciences

in Health [email protected]

17 Subhasmita Khuntia Ph.D.


18 Cécile Mouchel M. Phil. University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne,

IEDES

Economics [email protected]

19 Antoni Raj Research Assistant.

French Institute of Pondicherry

Socio-economics [email protected]



Workshop 2

Gender and Labour Coordinator:

Hélène Guétat-Bernard

Sociologist (French Institute of Pondicherry, Head of Social Sciences Department, Puducherry)

Invited tutors:

C. Aruna

Sociologist (Center of Women’s studies, Pondicherry University, Puducherry)

Hervé Breton

Science of education (University of Tours, Tours, France)

Lapeyre Nathalie

Sociologist (CERTOP Research Unit, Toulouse University, Toulouse, France)

Nalini Ranganathan

Social work (Head of Department of Social Work, Pondicherry University, Puducherry)

Venkatasubramanian G.

Sociologist (French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry)

With video intervention of

Isabelle Guérin, Socio-economic, IRD (CESSMA Research Unit), Paris, France

Kalpana Karunakaran, Sociology, IIT Madras, Chennai

Argument-Purpose

Workshop 2 on “gender and labour” proposes a conceptual as well as a methodological reflection,

with half a day of fieldwork. It is based on the contributions of sociology of labour, development

studies and socio-economics and mobilises Indian and French theoretical works and examples taken

in these two contexts of India and France.

The workshop begins with an analysis of the major debates between India and France led by the

sociology of gender within the discipline of sociology of work. We will explore how gender studies

have crossed all the fields of the sociology of work: starting from a redefinition of work to

deconstruct the dichotomy of productive and reproductive work, the sexual division of labour, the

analysis of employment systems and professional hierarchies. From the 1990s, with the

consequences of globalisation, new debates appear: regulation of the labour market and evolution of



capitalism, new productive models and the place of women, feminisation of work, globalised care

professions, etc.

The renewal of the definition of work and its analysis allowed by a gender approach is based on the

theoretical challenge of the articulation between the sociology of work and family (Galerand and

Kergoat, 2014). Therefore, the objective is to understand the link between analysis of production and

gender relations within families (Hirata and Kergoat 2005), but also, in the business and in relation to

the state. One of the issues is to understand how the labour market mechanisms are gendered and

conversely how the labour market engages gender (cit. ibid).

French materialist feminist sociology (Delphy 1970; Guillaumin 1978) has redefined the concept of

work and exploitation. On the one hand, the theorisation of social relations of sex as relations of

production and exploitation allowing for the conceptualising domestic work as “exploited labour”. On

the other hand, the epistemological and methodological proposal from the “point of view” has made

it possible to theorise the sex of the person in a work situation, whether salaried or self-employed,

which has made it possible to think of the intersection of different power relations

(consubstantiality).

The concept of the “sexual division of labour” makes it possible to designate as labour all the human

production activities of living in society (Hirata and Zarifian 2000). This broad definition of work

allows the socio-economist to think about the links between all forms of work, covering different

forms of exchange.

The intersection of the analysis of gender and labour allows for thinking of work not only as relations

of exploitation but also of emancipation. The experience at work opens the questions of self-respect,

production of one's experience, and a collective dimension of solidarity and emancipation. It is these

dimensions that the social and solidarity economy questions in a feminist approach.

Thus, we will discuss between France and India how social and economic organisations think about

the place of women and men at work, what are the gender divisions at work, how are job systems

organised to understand how work is an effective way to understand gender relations?

Different themes will be discussed: globalisation and the recent history of capitalism with its effects

on the place of women and men at work, remuneration / discrimination / working conditions,

feminisation / stereotypes / representation of diversity, informality / agricultural activities and

agroecology / care activities, social protection / public policy, work experience / empowerment.

Main Objectives of the workshop

To make known and understood feminist approaches of labour;

To understand the situation of women's work in a globalised Indian economy;

To analyse the articulations between capitalism and patriarchy under contextualised

conditions (rural/urban, formal/informal sector, migrations…);

To compare France/India on feminisation of professions and equality policy;

To help the students take into account gender issues in their thesis.



Workshop 2 Schedule


9:00-9:30

Opening speech

Introduction and objectives of the workshop


9:30-11:00 Gender and feminist studies on labour: French theoretical contribution and specific examples from France and Europe


11:15-12:30 Discussion on the comparative perspective India/France and Europe. Presentation of trainees’ experiences

12:30-14:00 Lunch

13:30-15:30 Women’s mobilising. A feminist perspective


15:45-17:00 Learning process experience in work situations: methodological approach


9:00-10:30 Women, work and disability (ethics question, intersectionality approach)


10:45-12:30 The socio-economy of care and empowerment in agroecology

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:00 Preparation of the interviews for the fieldwork


15:15-17:00 Fieldwork


9:00-11:00 Understanding Women and Labour through Social Network Analysis (SNA)


11:15-12:30 Role-game on non-conventional gender role at work

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-18:00 Toward a research agenda: Preparation of the project by participants


9:00-11:00 Group work



12:30-14:00 Lunch



15:45-18:00

Group work restitution of project

Discussion of the results and the workshops

Valedictory



Readings

Agarwal B. 2000. Conceptualising environmental collective action: why gender matters. Cambridge Journal of economics, 24, pp. 238-310

Aruna, C. 2018. Does Social Capital make a difference for Dalit Women in Local Self Governance? Contemporary Voice of Dalit (Sage Publications), 10(1), pp. 1-8.

Bhambani, M. 2003. Societal responses to women with disabilities in India. In Hans, A., & Patri, A. (eds.). Women, disability and identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 76-88.

Cedefop, European inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning – 2016 update Synthesis report [http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/files/4153_en.pdf]

Custers, P. 2012. Capital Accumulation and Women’s Labour in Asian Economies. Monthly Review Press.

Das, S.. 2019. Gender disability in India: A feminist perspective. In Vanka. S. et al (eds.) Gender and work. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, pp. 66-76.

Disch, L. 2015. Christine Delphy's Constructivist Materialism: An Overlooked “French Feminism”. South Atlantic Quarterly 1 114(4), pp. 827-849.

Dhruv P. & Munmun J. 2016. Collective and Organic Farming in Tamil Nadu: Women’s Participation, Empowerment and Food Sovereignty. Asian Social Science 12(8).

Elson, D. 1999. Labour Market as Gendered Institutions: Equality, Efficiency and Empowerment Issues. World Development 27(3). pp. 611- 627.

Hanson, S. and Pratt, G. 1991. Job Search and the Occupational Segregation of Women, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81(2), pp. 229-253.

Jewitt, S. 2000. Unequal Knowledges in Jharkhand, India: De‐Romanticizing Women’s Agroecological Expertise. Development and change. 31(5), pp. 961-985.

Kabeer, N., Sudarshan, R. & Millward, K. (eds.). 2013. Organising Women Workers in the Informal Economy. London: Zed Books.

Kabeer, N. 1994. Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London. New York: Verso.

Kalpana K. 2017. Women, Microfinance and the State in Neoliberal India, London and New York: Routledge.

Pascall, G., Lewis, J. 2004. Emerging Gender Regimes and Policies for Gender Equality in a Wider Europe. Journal of Social Policy, 33(3), pp. 373-394.

Petitmengin C., Bitbol M. 2009. The Validity of First-Person Descriptions as Authenticity and Coherence, in C. Petitmengin (ed.), Ten Years of Viewing from Within. The Legacy of Francisco Varela, Imprint Academic.

Petitmengin, C. 2014. Comment on Vermersch's 'Explicitation et Phénoménologie'. Jounal of Consciousness Sudies 21(11-12), pp. 196-201.

Sharma, A. and Saha S. 2015. Female Employment Trends in India: A Disaggregated Analysis, The NEHU Journal 13(2), pp. 17-30.

Swaminathan, P. 2012. Women and Work. New Delhi: Oriented Blackswan Private Limited.



Verschuur Ch., Guérin I., Hillenkamp I. 2017. Genre et économie solidaire, des croisements nécessaires Cahiers Genre et Développement n°10, L'Harmattan, Genève/Paris. The book is available on line and includes few papers in English and dealing with the Indian context.

A Multi State Socio Economic Study of Women with Disabilities in India Report (UNDP – Government of India – SMRC Study) Bhubaneswar 2007. http://usicd.org/doc/A%20Multi%20State%20Socio%20Economic%20Study%20of%20Women%20With%20Disabilities%20in%20India.pdf


Name Level University Field of research Email

1 Akhil M M Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Social Work [email protected]

2 Apratyasita Tripathy M.Phil. Utkal University Sociology [email protected]

3 Asha Sridharan Ph.D.

candidate University Of Hyderabad

Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy

[email protected]

4 Chaviti Sai Gowri

Nithisha M.A.

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad

Women's Studies [email protected]

5 Delliswararao Konduru Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Anthropology [email protected]

6 Divya GS Ph.D.

candidate Tata Institute of Social

Sciences, Mumbai Gender and Labour [email protected]

7 Ishita Paul Ph.D.

candidate Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad


8 Karuppasamy M Ph.D.

candidate Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad


9 Leena Sharma Ph.D.

candidate Central University of Gujarat

Comparative Literature and

Translation Studies

[email protected]

10 Namreeta Kumari Ph.D.

candidate University of Delhi Political Science [email protected]

11 Neha Yadav Ph.D.

candidate Jawaharlal Nehru University Public Health [email protected]

12 Ramesh Ramasamy Ph.D.

candidate University of Colombo, Sri

Lanka Public Administration [email protected]

13 Raushan Singh Ph.D.

candidate Jawaharlal Nehru University Development Studies [email protected]

14 Roopashree Vadageri Ph.D.

candidate Central University of

Karnataka Social Work [email protected]

15 Simranjeet Kaur Ph.D.


16 Yaja Millo Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Tourism [email protected]

https://books.openedition.org/iheid/6689?format=toc

http://usicd.org/doc/A%20Multi%20State%20Socio%20Economic%20Study%20of%20Women%20With%20Disabilities%20in%20India.pdf

http://usicd.org/doc/A%20Multi%20State%20Socio%20Economic%20Study%20of%20Women%20With%20Disabilities%20in%20India.pdf



Workshop 3

Labour, Informality and Precarity

in India’s New Economy

Coordinators:

Geert de Neve

Anthropologist (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK)

Thanuja Mummidi

Anthropologist (Pondicherry University, Puducherry)

Invited Tutors:

Supriya RoyChowdhury

Political Science (Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore)

G. Vijay

Economist (Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad)

Jayaseelan Raj

Anthropologist (Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum)

Description and aims of the workshop

Across sectors of India’s economy, labour is marked by high levels of informality, insecurity and

precariousness. Labour in Indian agriculture and industry has a long history of informal, casual and

irregular employment, as well as of relations of dependency, unfreedom and indebtedness. The post-

liberalisation era has produced a range of transformation in how labour is recruited and employed in

the ‘old’ sectors of the economy, while also giving rise to new employment opportunities such as in

novel industries, the service economy, information and technology, and domestic work.

This workshop will explore some of the continuities and changes in the ways in which labour is

recruited and deployed, and discuss some of the wider transformations in the nature of India’s

capitalist economy that have impacted on existing labour relations. Particular attention will be paid

to the continuities and discontinuities over time, in terms of work conditions and labour relations, as

well as to the ways in which opportunities and constraints are shaped by caste, gender and other

markers of social identity. Key structural transformations will be considered, such as the enhanced

reliance of migrant labour, subcontracting, the increased use of middlemen and brokers, and the

informalisation of previously formal modes of employment. Labour will thus be explored in the

context of the changing class and capitalist dynamics that shape employment relations.

In addition, the workshop will also focus on individual experiences of workers across sectors and

industries, and the new – neoliberal – subjectivities that are emerging in the context of new



employment opportunities, such as in the IT and service sectors. We will consider some of its

contradictions and challenges for workers who aspire for security and mobility. Finally, despite far-

reaching changes in labour markets, the increased precariousness of employment and the decline in

traditional forms of unionisation, we will explore what spaces for politics are opening up in the

process. We will consider more individualised forms of resistance as well as collective forms of

organising and action.

An additional feature of the workshop is what it will reflect on the methodology and ethics of

researching informal labour in contemporary India. We will consider the strengths of empirically

grounded and ethnographic approaches, as well as the challenges and limitations that they produce.

Workshop 3 Schedule


9:00-9:30

Opening Speech

Introduction and Objectives of the workshop (M. Thanuja)


9:30-10:45 Employment in the New Services Sector: new Labour? (Supriya RoyChowdhury)

10:45-11:00 Coffee/Tea Break

11:00-12:30 Conceptualising Labour Agency under Neoliberalisation: a view from the Tamil Nadu garment sector (Geert De Neve)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Women and Unions in the Garments Export Sector (Supriya RoyChowdhury)


15:45-17:00 Changing Faces of Labour Brokerage: Dealing with Labour Markets, Brokers’ Subjectivities and Labour Politics


9:00-9:30 Recap- Day 1

9:30-11:00 Migrant Labour and Categories of Identity (Jayaseelan Raj)


11:15-12:30 Investigating Labour Migration in India

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:15 Informal Labour, Formal Sectors: Changing Labour Regimes in Plantations (Jayaseelan Raj)


15:30-17:00 Flexibilisation of Labour in the Organised Manufacturing Sector in South India: Implications for labour relations, employment and society (Gudavarthy Vijay)


9:00-10:15 Odisha Migrant Labour in Unorganised Brick Kilns of Telangana: Beyond Unfree Employment and Towards Uncivil Development (Gudavarthy Vijay)




10:30-12:00 Labour, Health and Safety: Reconceptualising workers’ health and wellbeing in South Asia’s garment industry (Geert De Neve)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-18:00 Preparation of the restitution and project by participants



11:00-11:15 Coffee break


12:30-14:00 Lunch


15:40-15:45 Coffee Break

15:45-18:00

Group work restitution of project

Discussion of the results and the workshops

Valedictory

Readings (*key readings) Informality and informalisation

*Harriss-White, B. and N. Gooptu. 2001. ‘Mapping India’s World of Unorganized Labour’. In Socialist Register 2001: Working Classes, Global Realities, pp. 89-118. London: Merlin.

*Bhattacharyya, R. and K. Sanyal. 2011. ‘Bypassing the Squalor: New Towns, Immaterial Labour and Exclusion in Post-colonial Urbanisation’. Economic and Political Weekly 46(31), pp. 41-48.

*Sanyal, K. and R. Bhattacharyya. 2009. ‘Beyond the Factory: Globalisation, Informalisation of Production and the New Locations of Labour’. Economic & Political Weekly 44(22), pp. 35-44.

De Neve, Geert. 2019. The Sociology of Labour in India. In: Srivastava, Sanjay, Abraham, Janaki and Arif, Yasmeen (eds.) Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Parry, Jonathan. 2013a. ‘Company and Contract Labour in a Central Indian Steel Plant’. Economy and Society 42(3), pp. 348-74.

De Neve, Geert. 2005. The Everyday Politics of Labour: Working Lives in India’s Informal Economy. New Delhi: Social Science Press and Berghahn.

Liberalisation and globalisation

*Cross, Jamie. 2010. ‘Neoliberalism as Unexceptional: Economic Zones and the Everyday Precariousness of Working Life in South India’. Critique of Anthropology 30(4), pp. 355-73.

*De Neve, Geert and Carswell, Grace M. 2014. T-Shirts and tumblers: caste, dependency and work under neo-liberalisation in South India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 48(1), pp. 103-131.

De Neve, Geert 2014. Fordism, flexible specialization and CSR: how Indian garment workers critique neoliberal labour regimes. Ethnography, 15(2). pp. 184-207.

*Prentice, R., & De Neve, G. (eds.). 2017. Unmaking the Global Sweatshop: Health and Safety of the World's Garment Workers. University of Pennsylvania Press.

http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/10082/






Vera-Sanso, P. 2012. ‘Gender, Poverty and Old-age Livelihoods in Urban South India in an Era of Globalisation’. Oxford Development Studies 40(3), pp. 324-40.

Li, Tania Murray. 2010. ‘To Make Live or Let Die? Rural Dispossession and the Protection of Surplus Populations’. Antipode 41(s1), pp. 66-93.

Besky, Sarah, 2008, ‘Can a plantation be fair? Paradoxes and possibilities in fair trade Darjeeling tea certification’, Anthropology of Work Review 29(1), pp. 1-9.

Indebtedness and unfreedom

*Breman, Jan and I. Guerin. 2009. ‘Introduction: On Bondage—Old and New’. In India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New, edited by J. Breman, I. Guerin and A. Prakash, pp. 1-17. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Breman, Jan, I. Guerin and A. Prakash (eds.) 2009. India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

*Srivastava, Ravi. 2009. ‘Conceptualising Continuity and Change in Emerging Forms of Labour Bondage in India’. In India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New, edited by J. Breman, I. Guerin and A. Prakash. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 129-46.

*Carswell, G. and G. De Neve. 2013a. ‘From Field to Factory: Tracing Transformations in Bonded Labour in the Tiruppur Region, Tamil Nadu’. Economy and Society 42(3), pp. 430-454.

Guerin, Isabelle. 2013. ‘Bonded Labour, Agrarian Changes and Capitalism: Emerging Patterns in South India’. Journal of Agrarian Change 13(3), pp. 405-23.

*Picherit, David. 2009. ‘“Workers, Trust Us!” Labour Middlemen and the Rise of the Lower Castes in Andhra Pradesh’. In India’s Unfree Workforce: Of Bondage Old and New, edited by J. Breman, I. Guerin and A. Prakash, pp. 259-83. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Rogaly, B. and A. Rafique. 2003. ‘Struggling to Save Cash: Seasonal Migration and Vulnerability in West Bengal, India’. Development and Change 34(4), pp. 659-81.

De Neve, Geert. 1999. ‘Asking for and Giving Baki: Neo-bondage, or the Interplay of Bondage and Resistance in the Tamilnadu Power-loom Industry’. Contributions to Indian Sociology 33(1-2), pp. 379-406.

*Raj, Jayaseelan. 2013. Alienated Enclaves: Economic Crisis and Neo- bondage in a South Indian Plantation Belt, Forum for Development Studies, 40(3), pp. 465-490.

*Raj, Jayaseelan. 2017. ‘The Tea Belts of Western Ghats’. In Shah, A and Lerche, J and Axelby, R and Benbabaali, D. and Donegan, B. and Raj, J. and Thakur, V. Ground Down by Growth: Inequality in 21st Century India. London: Pluto.

Kapadia, Karin. 1995a. ‘The Profitability of Bonded Labour: The Gem-cutting Industry in Rural South India’. The Journal of Peasant Studies 22(3), pp. 446-83.

Mosse, D., S. Gupta, M. Mehta, V. Shah, J.F. Rees and KRIBP Project Team. 2002. ‘Brokered Livelihoods: Debt, Labour Migration and Development in Tribal Western India’. Journal of Development Studies 38(5), pp. 59-88.

Employment in India’s ‘new’ economy

Cross, Jamie. 2009. ‘From Dreams to Discontent: Educated Young Men and the Politics of Work at a Special Economic Zone in Andhra Pradesh’. Contributions to Indian Sociology 43(3), pp. 351-79.



*Gooptu, Nandini. 2013b. ‘Introduction’. In Enterprise Culture in Neoliberal India: Studies in Youth, Class, Work and Media, edited by N. Gooptu, pp. 1-24. London: Routledge.

*Gooptu, Nandini.2009. ‘Neoliberal Subjectivity, Enterprise Culture and New Workplaces: Organised Retail and Shopping Malls in India’. Economic &Political Weekly 44(22), pp. 45-54.

*Gooptu, Nandini. 2013a. ‘Servile Sentinels of the City: Private Security Guards, Organized Informality, and Labour in Interactive Services in Globalized India’. International Review of Social History 58(1), pp. 9-38.

Fuller, C.J. and H. Narasimhan. 2007. ‘Information Technology Professionals and the New-rich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras)’. Modern Asian Studies 41(1), pp. 121-50.

———. 2008. ‘Empowerment and Constraint: Women, Work and the Family in Chennai’s Software Industry’. In In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry, edited by C. Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi, pp. 190-210. New Delhi: Routledge.

Upadhya, Carol. 2011. ‘Software and the “New” Middle Class in the “New India”’. In Elite and Everyman: The Cultural Politics of the Indian Middle Classes, edited by A. Baviskar and R. Ray, pp. 167-92. New Delhi: Routledge.

———. 2016. Reengineering India: Work, Capital and Class in an Offshore Economy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

*Upadhya, Carol and A.R. Vasavi. 2008. ‘Outposts of the Global Information Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Outsourcing Industry’. In In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry, edited by C. Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi pp. 9-49. New Delhi: Routledge.

Mukherjee, Sanjukta. 2008. ‘Producing the Knowledge Professional: Gendered Geographies of Alienation in India’s New High-tech Workplace’. In In an Outpost of the Global Economy: Work and Workers in India’s Information Technology Industry, edited by C. Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi, pp. 50-75. New Delhi: Routledge.

*Barua, P., Haukanes, H. and Waldrop, A. 2016. Maid in India: Negotiating and Contesting the Boundaries of Domestic Work. Forum for Development Studies 43(3), pp. 415-436. DOI: 10.1080/08039410.2016.1199444

Labour politics: class, consciousness and collective action

Lerche, J., 2009. From ‘rural labour’ to ‘classes of labour’: class fragmentation, caste and class struggle at the bottom of the Indian labour hierarchy. In The Comparative Political Economy of Development, pp. 90-111. Routledge.

*RoyChowdhury, Supriya. 2003. ‘Old Classes and New Spaces: Urban Poverty, Unorganised Labour and New Unions’. Economic & Political Weekly 38(50), pp. 5277-84.

*RoyChowdhury, S. 2014. Bringing class back in: Informality in Bangalore. Socialist Register, 51(51).

*Carswell, G., & De Neve, G. 2013. Labouring for global markets: Conceptualising labour agency in global production networks. Geoforum, 44, pp. 62-70.

*Vijayabaskar, M., 2017. State spatial restructuring, subnational politics and emerging spaces of engagement for collective action: Labour regimes in Tamil Nadu, southern India. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 35(1), pp. 42-56.

Barua, P., and Haukanes, H. (forthcoming). Organising for Empowerment: Exploring the Impact of Unionization on Domestic Workers in India. Journal of Contemporary Asia.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2016.1199444



Pattenden, J. 2016. Working at the margins of global production networks: local labour control regimes and rural-based labourers in South India, Third World Quarterly, 37:10, 1809-1833, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1191939

Kapadia, Karin. 1999. ‘Gender Ideologies and the Formation of Rural Industrial Classes in South India Today’. Contributions to Indian Sociology 33(1-2), pp. 329-52.

Carswell, G. 2016. ‘Struggles over Work Take Place at Home: Women’s Decisions, Choices and Constraints in the Tiruppur Textile Industry, India’. Geoforum 77, pp. 134-45

De Neve, G., 2008. Global garment chains, local labour activism: New challenges to trade union and NGO activism in the Tiruppur garment cluster, South India. In Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility, pp. 213-240. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Labour Migration and Brokerage

Breman, J. 1996. Footloose Labour. Working in India’s Informal Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gidwani, V. and Sivaramakrishnan, K. 2003. ‘Circular Migration and Rural Cosmopolitanism in India’, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 37(1-2), pp. 339-367.

Deshingkar, Priya and Farrington, John. 2009. Circular migration and multi locational livelihoods strategies in rural India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

Srivastava, R., & Sutradhar, R. 2016. Labour Migration to the Construction Sector in India and its Impact on Rural Poverty. Indian Journal of Human Development, 10(1), pp. 27-48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0973703016648028

*Picherit, David. 2012. "Migrant Labourers’ Struggles Between Village and Urban Migration Sites: Labour Standards, Rural Development and Politics in South India," Global Labour Journal 3: Iss.1, pp. 143-162. http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/globallabour/vol3/iss1/7

*Picherit, D. 2018. Labour Migration Brokerage and Dalit Politics in Andhra Pradesh: a Dalit Fabric of Labour Circulation, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Lindquist, J., Xiang, B., & Yeoh, B. S. 2012. Opening the black box of migration: Brokers, the organization of transnational mobility and the changing political economy in Asia. Pacific Affairs 85(1), pp. 7-19.

*De Neve, Geert. 2014. “Entrapped Entrepreneurship Labour Contractors in the South Indian Garment Industry.” Modern Asian Studies 48(5), pp. 1302-1333.

Roy, T. 2008. Sardars, Jobbers, Kanganies: The Labour Contractor and Indian Economic History. Modern Asian Studies, 42:5, pp. 971-998.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1191939

https://exchange.sussex.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=8opLkVdsuCwl_FYTIbonrT_eFm55aTenxlV8ybgx6CxBe6Tjz0jWCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsro.sussex.ac.uk%2f11985%2f

https://exchange.sussex.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=8opLkVdsuCwl_FYTIbonrT_eFm55aTenxlV8ybgx6CxBe6Tjz0jWCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fsro.sussex.ac.uk%2f11985%2f

https://exchange.sussex.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=GNMYjsPZdLw0TuFSfKKUG0fZ2GagZd0Exe6iGCShVjNBe6Tjz0jWCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fdoi.org%2f10.1177%2f0973703016648028

https://exchange.sussex.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=v1bYKqCs7GaCMGyLi4mBQNBB-ifp0iaNnfOYJOIat89Be6Tjz0jWCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fdigitalcommons.mcmaster.ca%2fgloballabour%2fvol3%2fiss1%2f7




Name Level University Field of research Email

1 Akansha Yadav M.Phil. University of Delhi Geography [email protected]

2 Anurag Panicker M.A. Pondicherry University Economics [email protected]

3 Avinash Ediga Ph.D.

candidate. South Asian University,

New Delhi Sociology [email protected]

4 Bhavya Sinha Ph.D.


University Economics [email protected]

5 Boddu Srujana Ph.D.

candidate Madras Institute of

Development Studies Economics [email protected]

6 Deepshi Arya M.A. O.P Jindal Global

University Public Policy [email protected]

7 Gokul S Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University

Social Exclusion and Inclusive

Policy [email protected]

8 Ishita Patil M.A. St. Xavier's (Autonomous)

College, Mumbai Public Policy [email protected]

9 Jina Sarmah Ph.D.

candidate

Institute for Social and Economic Change,

Bangalore

Labour Studies [email protected]

10 Kamlesh Bansal Ph.D.

candidate Panjab University

Public Administration

[email protected]

11 Mrityunjay Pandey Ph.D.

candidate University of Hyderabad

Economics mrityunjaypandey79@gmail.

com

12 Mohammad Sajjad

Hussain Ph.D.

candidate University of Delhi

Social Anthropology

[email protected]

13 Mufsin Puthan

Purayil Ph.D.

candidate IIM Calcutta Public Policy [email protected]

14 Muhammed Rafi Ph.D.


Social Exclusion And Inclusive

Policy

[email protected]

15 P. Premalatha Ph.D.

candidate Pondicherry University Sociology [email protected]

16 Rajorshi Ray Ph.D.

candidate IIT Kanpur Sociology [email protected]

17 Sooraj HS Ph.D.


University Sociology [email protected]

18 Subhashree Subhasmita

Mohanty

Ph.D. candidate

Pondicherry University Sociology [email protected]

19 Vishnu Priya R Y Ph.D.


Social Exclusion and Inclusive

Policy [email protected]



APPENDICES



Acronyms and abbreviations

CEIAS – Centre for South Asian Studies, Paris

CERTOP – Centre d’Etude et de Recherche Travail Organisation Pouvoir, Toulouse

CESSMA – Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques,

Paris

CNRS – French National Scientific Centre

CSSEIP – Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy

DIAL – Research Unit "Development, Institutions and Globalisation" (IRD-Université Paris-

Dauphine), Paris

EHESS – Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

IFP – French Institute of Pondicherry

IIM – Indian Institute of Management

IIT – Indian Institute of Technology

IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development

JNU – Jawaharlal Nehru University

MAE – French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MAGE – Réseau de Recherche International and Pluridisciplinaire “Marché du Travail et Genre » (International and pluridisciplinary research network on Labour market and Gender)

PALOC – Research Unit “Patrimoines Locaux et Gouvernance” (IRD-National Museum of Natural

History), Paris

TISS – Tata Institute of Social Science

UMISARC – UNESCO - Madanjeet Singh Institute for South Asian Regional Cooperation



Bios of trainers and coordinators

SENTHIL BABU D. is a Historian with the Department of Social Sciences, French Institute of Pondicherry.

His research is oriented towards the historical and contemporary relationship between knowledge

practices and labour in India, and his work on the social history of mathematical practices in early

modern and colonial south India will be published soon. He has also been working on the history of

the Kaveri deltaic region and the Coramandel Coast with particular attention towards the dynamics of

nature, knowledge and labour in the histories of these landscapes. The interaction between these

avowedly distinct spheres in history and contemporary politics needs to be reoriented to address the

concerns of working lives, and he is currently engaged in developing these concerns into a research

programme at the French Institute of Pondicherry.

HERVE BRETON is a Professor in Educational Sciences at the University of Tours and a member of EA

7505 - EES. His research focusses on the fields of adult education, work analysis and prior learning

recognition and validation, in the fields work and health education, from a hermeneutical and

biographical perspective. He is co-director of the journal Chemins de formation

(www.cheminsdeformation.fr), president of the International Association of Life Stories in Formation

(ASIHVIF), member of the “Explicitation group research”. He coordinated issue 205 of the journal

Education Permanente (2015-4) entitled: “Educational guidance, reciprocity and collective action”.

ANNE CASILE is a Research Fellow at IRD (French National Research Institute for Sustainable

Development), and a member of the Research Unit PALOC (Patrimoines Locaux and Governance, IRD/

National Museum of Natural History) in Paris. She has been assigned by the IRD in India, and is an

Associate Researcher of the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP). In the field of spatial and landscape

archaeology, her research focuses on water management and the relationship between religion,

power, and water control in the making of places and cultural landscapes in Central India. She is

currently coordinating an interdisciplinary ANR funded project (MANDU) to investigate the impacts of

rainfall uncertainty and monsoon anomalies on societal development and vulnerability in medieval

times, and the ways people adapted to hydroclimatic variability, insecurity, and extremes in the semi-

arid region of Malwa (Madhya Pradesh), around Mandu.

ARUNA CHINNAPPAN is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Sociology and Head (i//c), Centre for

Women’s Studies, Pondicherry University. She has 16 years of experience in teaching and research in

the field of gender studies, gerontology and social networks. Her research work focuses on Rural

Widows, Elderly Women and Women in Local Self Governance from a Social Network Perspective

specifically in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Currently she has undertaken research projects on

“Health and Wellbeing of Elderly in Pondicherry” and “Parental Involvement in Academic

Achievement of Children in Pondicherry”. The research largely focuses on the Social Network as a

tool to examine social structure and social support and elucidates the dynamics involved.

HELENE GUETAT-BERNARD is Professor of Sociology at Toulouse University (ENSFEA), presently Head of

the Social Sciences Department at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India (UMIFRE 21 (CNRS-

MEAE). She hold a PhD in socio-economy from EHESS, Paris and was professor of geography for 15

years. She is working on gender and rural development, agroecology, local food system, care and

http://www.cheminsdeformation.fr/

http://w.ifpindia.org/content/landscapes-and-waterscapes-asia-monsoon-climatic-anomalies-and-societal-dynamics-medieval



ecofeminism in different context (India, West Africa, Brazil, France). She has published Verschuur C.,

Guérin I., Guétat H, (éd.), 2014, « Under Development, Gender », London, Palgrave. She participated

in the creation of an international network on gender and agroecology (next meeting is in Recife

Brazil in April 2019).

KARUNA DIETRICH WIELENGA is a Historian whose interest lies in social and economic history, particularly

in the history of labour in the informal sector. She holds a PhD from the University of Delhi, and was a

postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford. She has worked on the history of handloom weavers

in South India, wherein she explored the economic restructuring of the industry from the early

nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and the impact it had on different kinds of weavers.

Currently she has extended her research to labour in other industries and services that occupy the

informal sector (such as beedi making, tanning, hotel-work). By looking at the complex interactions

and conflicts between labour, capital and the state in these different industries she hopes to work

towards a history of the informal sector as a whole.

SÉBASTIEN MICHIELS is a Postdoctoral fellow at the French Institute of Pondicherry (Pondicherry, India).

He is also affiliated at DIAL (Paris, France). He holds a PhD in development economics from University

of Bordeaux. His research focuses on the links between employment, financial practices and

migration dynamics in rural India. He pays particular attention to issues of class, caste and gender

discrimination in the labour market. He has acquired an extensive experience in data collection as he

was part of two socio-economic surveys: RUME and NEEMSIS, respectively conducted in 2010 and

2016/17 among 500 households in rural Tamil Nadu. He has also conducted several rounds of

qualitative interviews in South India between 2009 and 2018.

THANUJA MUMMIDI is Assistant Professor in the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy

at Pondicherry University, where she has been teaching since 2009. She holds a Ph.D. in Social

Anthropology from the University of Madras. Post Ph.D. she was awarded the Urgent Anthropology

Fellowship by the Royal Anthropological Institute, U.K. She later collaborated with the Rural

Employment and Microfinance (RUME) programme of the French Institute of Pondicherry in

researching the impact of income generating activities on women and their empowerment. She also

coordinated a project on ‘Forms of Money with the Konda Reddis' funded by the Institute for Money,

Technology and Financial Inclusion, UCl, Irvine. Her specialisation lies at the interface of economic

and ecological anthropology, food sovereignity, and issues of rights and development policy of

indigenous populations. She started her research on the Konda Reddis, an indigenous population in

south India, in early 2000. Her publications are largely with reference to them.

CHRISTOPHE JALIL NORDMAN is Research Fellow at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable

Development (IRD), and is currently assigned to IFP (Pondicherry, India) and DIAL (Paris, France). He

holds a PhD in development economics from University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He has an

expertise in socio-economic data collection and analysis. His research focuses on the various

dimensions of labour in developing countries, including the formation of earnings, skills and social

networks, discrimination, employment and household vulnerabilities, and the labour consequences

of migrations. His former regional focus was North and West Africa, Madagascar, Vietnam and

Bangladesh, where he has acquired over the years an extensive field experience, set up research

networks and conducted numerous research projects. He is currently in charge of a longitudinal

http://www.rume-rural-microfinance.org/

https://neemsis.hypotheses.org/



socio-economic data collection within the Social Sciences Department at IFP (NEEMSIS) focusing on

households’ financial practises, labour, skills, social networks and mobilities in rural Tamil Nadu

(under the general framework of the LAKSMI programme he’s coordinating).

NATHALIE LAPEYRE is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaures. She is involved in

the movement of institutionalisation of gender studies (Head of Master Gender Equality and Social

Policies (GEPS) and European Master EGALES) and is registered in the international scientific

networks (Co-director of the International Multidisciplinary Research Network MAGE: Labour Market

and Gender). Member of the CERTOP-CNRS (Research Centre on Work Organizations and Policies),

her topics of researchs explores the analysis of feminisation of professions in France and in Europe.

Her recent research aims to understand the issues, the implementation and the effects of a policy of

gender diversity and equality within companies (advanced technology industry) or local policies. She

coordinated, with Helene Guetat (2017, 63) an issue of the journal Cahiers du genre on

« Empowerment practices » in a feminist perspective.

LAURE PASQUIER-DOUMER is Research Fellow at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable

Development (IRD), and is a member of the research unit DIAL (Paris, France). She holds a PhD in

development economics from the Paris Institute of Political sciences (IEP). Her research focuses on

inequality of opportunity, by studying the role of social background in the integration in the labour

market or in the educational achievement. She scrutinises the role of the social background on

occupational transitions or on the performance of the informal self-employed, with a specific focus

on family networks. She conducted various micro-data collection on individuals’ employment in

different contexts (Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Peru). She co-edited a book on the informal

sector in Vietnam in addition to several academic papers on these issues.

NALINI RANGANATHAN is Professor, Head of Social Work Department, Pondicherry University where she

has been working since 2009. She has a PhD in Social Work from the University of Delhi. She was

Head (i/c) Centre for Women’s Studies, Pondicherry University between 2014 and 2018. Dr. Nalini’s

research interests are on fields intersecting social work and the workplace. She has researched on

social aspects of the workplace inclusive of bullying, women with disabilities, women leadership.

Associating herself very closely with social work practice, Dr. Nalini has been closely associated with

the government, NGOs and the corporate sector as an expert.

GEERT DE NEVE is Professor of Social Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Sussex

in Brighton, United Kingdom. He is author of The Everyday Politics of Labour: Working Lives in India’s

Informal Economy (Social Science Press, 2005), and has published multiple articles on labour, debt

bondage and social transformation in India, with a focus on Tamil Nadu’s textile and garment

industries. His articles have appeared in Economy and Society, Modern Asian Studies, Contributions

to Indian Sociology, Geoforum, Journal of Agrarian Change and Ethnography, among other journals.

He has also conducted research on the implementation and impacts of MGNREGA in Tamil Nadu.

Geert is also a co-editor of Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical

Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility (Emerald, 2008), of Industrial Work and Life: An

Anthropological Reader (Berg, 2009), and of Unmaking the Global Sweatshop: Health and Safety of

the World's Garment Workers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).

https://neemsis.hypotheses.org/

http://www.ifpindia.org/content/labour-skills-social-networks-and-mobilities-india-laksmi


http://www.dial.ird.fr/enquetes-statistiques/household-business-informal-sector-survey-in-vietnam-2014-15

http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-09/010070746.pdf

http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-09/010070746.pdf



VIJAY GUDAVARTHY is Assistant Professor at the School of Economics, University of Hyderabad. He

received his PhD in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies, The Hague in 2004. He has

been the principal investigator in the project on ‘Assessing and Monitoring the Implementation of

Social Security for Working poor in India’s Informal Economy – Case Study of Andhra Pradesh’ funded

by Hivos, The Hague during 2010-12. He has also been a Principal Investigator in the project on ‘A

Survey of Migration from Wester-Odisha to Brick Kilns in Andhra Pradesh, along with Tathagata

Sengupta, funded by S.R. Sankaran-Chair at NIRD&PR, Telangana, during 2013-16. His research-

interests include; Informalisation of Labour, Labour-Networks, Social-Structures and Accumulation,

Labour-Circulation, Un-Civil-Development, Informal-Social-Security for Unorganised-Workers and

Environmental Conflicts. He has several publications in Economic and Political Weekly, and as

chapters in books. His Recent-Publication is a chapter in D. Narasinha Reddy and K. Sarap (eds.)

(2017): Rural Labour Mobility in Times of Structural Transformation, 327-345, Springer-Publications;

Singapore, co-authored with Tathagata Sengupta.

JAYASEELAN RAJ is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala, and

Research Associate in the Egalitarianism Project at the Department of Anthropology, University of

Bergen, Norway. He received his PhD in Anthropology from Bergen in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral

Research Fellow for three years at the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics

before joining CDS. His publications include a co-authored book, Ground Down By Growth: Tribe,

Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st Century India (Pluto Press, London, 2017 and Oxford University

Press, India, 2018). His main research interests include plantation labour in south Asia, anthropology

of development, caste and class, poverty and inequality, and industrial work and social life.

SUPRIYA ROYCHOWDHURY has a Ph.D. from Princeton University. She has worked as a faculty member

at the IIM Ahmedabad, as Deputy Editor, The Hindu, and is currently Professor at ISEC. Her research

is mainly on the impact of globalisation on labour, particularly informal labour and modes of

collective organisation of labour in the current scenario. More recently she has worked on migration

and urban poverty. Her work has been published in the Journal of Development Studies, Third World

Quarterly. EPW, and several edited volumes.

BINITHA THAMPI is Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of Indian

Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), Chennai. She has multidisciplinary background with PhD in

Development Studies and her research lies in the broad area of Gender and Development. She has

several papers in her credit published in international journals and co-authored a book (with J.

Devika) entitled New Lamps for Old: Gender Paradoxes of Political Decentralization in Kerala (New

Dehli: Zubaan). Her recent research focus is in the area of Gender and Labour Geography that

explores the relationship between women's labour and mobility.

M. VIJAYABASKAR is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. He works on

political economy of regional development with a research focus on labour and land markets,

industrial dynamics and rural-urban transformations as they are shaped by processes of globalisation

and policy interventions. He uses meso-level frameworks within political economy such as ‘social

structure of accumulation’, ‘regional political economy’ and ‘cultural political economy’ that allow a

greater role for local level factors to explain outcomes and processes that are underway without

undermining the importance of more universal processes such as globalisation and marketisation. He

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-10-5628-4



is currently involved in a ESRC funded study on understanding the pathways out of and into rural

poverty using a Actor-Network approach in a couple of villages in Thiruvannamalai district.

VENKATASUBRAMANIAN G., Sociologist at the department of Social Sciences, French Institute of

Pondicherry. His research is on agrarian issues, focusses on labour and related economy, land and

water, and mostly drawn from qualitative and quantitative data. He specialised on gender and

finance, rural migration and rural urban linkages. At present he is working on gender and solidarity

economy, household financial diary and urban water issues.



Institutional partners and funding bodies

Pondicherry University, India

http://www.pondiuni.edu.in

French Institute of Pondicherry, India

http://www.ifpindia.org/

French National Research Institute for

Sustainable Development, France

http://en.ird.fr/ird.fr

Development, Institutions and Globalization, Paris http://www.dial.ird.fr/

Centre for South Asian Studies, Paris


http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/

http://www.ifpindia.org/

http://en.ird.fr/ird.fr





Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Pondicherry University http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/department/centre-study-social-exclusion-inclusive-policy

Patrimoines Locaux et Gouvernance, Paris http://paloc-prod.mnhn.fr/en

French Consulate of Pondicherry https://in.ambafrance.org/-Consulat-de-Pondichery-

Réseau de recherché international pluridisciplinaire “Marché du travail et genre" http://recherche.parisdescartes.fr/mage

Université de Tours https://www.univ-tours.fr/site-de-l-universite/accueil--598731.kjsp



http://paloc-prod.mnhn.fr/en

https://in.ambafrance.org/-Consulat-de-Pondichery-

https://in.ambafrance.org/-Consulat-de-Pondichery-

http://recherche.parisdescartes.fr/mage

https://www.univ-tours.fr/site-de-l-universite/accueil--598731.kjsp

https://www.univ-tours.fr/site-de-l-universite/accueil--598731.kjsp



Organisation Committees

Three committees have been formed for the implementation of this event.

Steering Committee

Preparation and monitoring of the event has been handled by the steering committee composed of

four experienced researchers in social sciences research and training:

Dr Anne Casile, IRD, PALOC and IFP

Dr Rémy Delage, CNRS, CEIAS, associated with the IFP

Dr Thanuja Mummidi, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy,

Pondicherry University

Dr Christophe Jalil Nordman, IRD, DIAL and IFP

The role of this committee is to ensure a constant information flow and strategic communication

among various institutional partners and donors, to prepare funding proposals and to scientifically

coordinate the event from its inception until its end and follow up.

Scientific Committee

The scientific committee has been established to suggest and discuss the topic of each edition and

the content of the training workshops. It includes the four members of the steering committee, other

members from selected institutional partners, including IFP and Pondicherry University.

Prof. K. Rajan (Archaeologist)

Department of History


Prof. Frédéric Landy (Geographer)

Director


Prof. B.B. Mohanty (Sociologist)

Department of Sociology


Dr Hélène Guétat-Bernard (Sociologist)

Head of Social Sciences Department


Prof. A. Chella Perumal (Anthropologist)

Department of Anthropology, Pondicherry

University

Dr Michel Boivin (Historian)

Head of CEIAS, CNRS/EHESS

Prof. P. Moorthy (Political Scientist)

Department of Politics and International Studies,


Dr Zoe Headley (Anthropologist)

Research Fellow, CNRS-CEIAS/EHESS

Associated with the IFP

Dr R. Nalini (Social Work)

Department of Social Work, Pondicherry

University

Dr Rémy Delage (Geographer) Research Fellow CNRS-CEIAS/EHESS



Dr A. Subramanyam Raju(Political Scientist)

UMISARC, Pondicherry University

Dr Christophe Jalil Nordman (Economist)

Research Fellow

IRD, DIAL and IFP

Dr A. Chidambaram (Social Work)

Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive

Policy, Pondicherry University

Dr Anne Casile (Archaeologist)

Research Fellow

IRD, PALOC and IFP

Dr Thanuja Mummidi (Anthropologist)

Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive

Policy, Pondicherry University

Dr Flore Gubert (Economist)

Head of Department of Social Sciences of IRD

Organising Committee

An organising committee composed of faculty, research associates and assistants, students,

administrators and engineers from IFP and Pondicherry University monitor the communication,

manage the website and handle all the logistical aspects of the event.



Practical information

On arrival

The registration and payment of fees will happen at 10 am on Monday 3rd December, 2018,

at Pondicherry University (at the UMISARC, Silver Jubilee Campus) before the inaugural and

plenary sessions.

Lodging

The trainers will be lodged at the Hotel Atithi, 126, S. V. Patel Salai, Near Ajantha Signal,

Pondicherry and the students will be housed in Pleasant Inn, 33, Ranga Pillai Street, Next to

Nilgiri's Super Market, Pondicherry.

Timings

First session starts 9:00

Lunch 12:30

Last session ends 17:00

(except on Thursday, 18:00)

Dinner 19:00

Plenary and training sessions

The inaugural, plenary sessions on Monday December 3rd will be held in the UMISARC

Auditorium, Silver Jubilee Campus, Pondicherry University.

The three workshops from Tuesday December 4th to Friday December 7thwill be held at

the French Institute of Pondicherry.

All students and participants are expected to be punctual. Attendance of the integrality

of workshops and plenary sessions is compulsory.

Checking out

All participants need to check out from the guesthouses and hotel at noon on Saturday

December 8th.

Contacts of the local organising team

Subra Roy Chowdhury:+91 75 98 24 99 07

Prabha Bharati: +91 94 89 22 36 36

Thanuja Mummidi: +91 94 43 49 42 04

Anne Casile: +91 97 86 27 91 64

Christophe Jalil Nordman: +91 70 94 38 48 45



Pondicherry University map

Entrance to the University Campus will be through Gate n° 2. You will then reach the

Silver Jubilee Campus. At the entrance, the UMISARC (UNESCO - Madanjeet Singh

Institute for South Asian Regional Cooperation) is situated on the right side of the campus,

as shown on this map.

Silver Jubilee Campus

UMISARC

Gate n° 2



French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP)



French Institute of Pondicherry(IFP) to Hotel Atithi

French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) to Pleasant In Hotel

Documents

SOCIAL S W S P - Hypotheses.org · Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry 2018 1 ... Senthil Babu, Sébastien Michiels, Laure Pasquier-Doumer, M. Vijayabaskar. 2 Social Sciences