ABSTRACT:In this qualitative study we examine the role of caste, class, and Dalit janitorial labor in the aftermath of floods in Chennai, India, in 2015. Drawing from a variety of sources including interviews, social media, and news coverage, we studied how Dalit (formerly known as ‘untouchable’) janitors were treated during the performance of janitorial labor for cleaning the city. Our study focuses on two theoretical premises: (a) caste-based social relations reproduce inequalities by devaluing Dalit labor as ‘dirty work’; and (b) Dalit subjectivities, labor, and sufferings including occupational hazards become invisible and ungrievable forcing Dalits to provide a counter narrative to preserve the memory of their trauma and dignity injuries. We find that the discursive construction of janitorial labor as dirty work forced Dalit janitors to work in appalling and unsafe working conditions. Janitors suffered several dignity injuries in terms of social exclusion and a lack of recognition for their efforts and accomplishments. Specifically, we examine various ways through which caste, dirty work, and dignity intersected in the narrative accounts of Dalit janitors. We also explore memory and how processes of remembering and forgetting affected the dignity claims of Dalit janitors.
Drawing from Agamben's theorization of sovereign power and bare lives, we engage with the narratives of three sets of murders in the state of Gujarat. These murders in Gujarat followed a pattern-the victims were almost always Muslims and were labeled as terrorists who had come to assassinate important politicians in the state, and the police claimed that these terrorists were killed in cross-fire. We analyse the empirical material pertaining to these murders to understand the organizational and political processes that were mobilized to legitimize them. We also focus on possibilities of resistance and subversion on account of the contradictions that emerge in the mobilization of these organizational and political processes, and thereby hope to make a call for organizing social relations around anchors other than sovereignty.In 2002, following the burning of a train coach in which 59 people were killed, there were widespread riots in the Indian state of Gujarat. Victims alleged that powerful people were involved in looting, arson and murder, and that the state had not been serious in bringing the rioters and murderers to justice (Engineer, 2003). While the rioters and murderers roamed free, the victims of the riots were forced to live as refugees (Gupta, 2011). The perpetrators of the riots who had close
Purpose
This paper aims to show that the experience of workers on the margins of international business is akin to the funeralesque. The funeralesque is understood as the appropriation of the value generated by workers across the production networks of international business.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing from the engagement with crematorium workers, the narratives of workers are articulated, describing the insecurities and injustices experienced by them. The authors draw from six-month-long qualitative engagement with seven workers in a crematorium in Ahmedabad, India.
Findings
The experience of marginal subjects provides important insights into how international business, in conjunction with states, structures inequality for marginal subjects. Precariousness, social exclusion, low wages and subjectivities of humiliation are the experiences of marginal subjects. The reproduction of marginality in globalising cities is an important element of the funeralesque through which extraction and re-distribution of value across international networks is legitimised.
Practical implications
In understanding international business as the funeralesque, the authors demystify the power relations constituted by it. The authors provide a metaphor for dethroning the legitimacy of international business and indicate that its modern practices are similar to the practices of value appropriation that occur in a funeral.
Originality/value
The authors develop the metaphor of the funeralesque to gain insights into the experiences of workers on the margins of international business. The authors are, thus, able to theorise the underbelly of globalising cities in a poetic, subversive way.
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