Doctoral Dissertation Research: Work, Politics, and Culture in a Globalizing Economy: The Life-Worlds of Industrial Labor in a Satellite Town of Delhi

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract 0075519 This project will investigate the changing lives of industrial workers in a large motorcycle manufacturing factory in Faridabad, India. Work processes and conditions have changed dramatically with industrial globalization, including new Japanese-style systems of shopfloor organization, increased casualization of the labor force, and the weakening of trade unions. This has made industrial labor more contentious and the lives of workers outside the factory (social networks) in flux. The researchers will analyze how workers respond to (comply with or resist) changing forms of labor organization and how workers perceive and structure their lives in the context of industrial globalization. Methods include participant observation, structured interviews with workers, managers, union leaders and others, and an intensive analysis of shopfloor politics with a core sample of workers. This project will contribute to our understanding of how industrial workers in the developing world are responding to new forms of industrial capitalism.