Doctoral Dissertation Research: Building Capitalism: Labor Ideologies in the Construction Industry in North India

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

University of Chicago doctoral student Adam Sargent, with the guidance of Dr. Susan Gal, will conduct research on local cultural dynamics of capitalist development. The research will be carried out in India through an ethnographic account of new skill training programs for construction workers, which is intended to transform a rural, migrant workforce organized around caste, kinship and residential relations into a modern one organized around skill. Sargent hypothesizes that the skill training programs may actually be producing the forms of difference that they purport to overcome and perpetuating rather than eliminating non-skills-based distinctions. The researcher will explore this hypothesis through participant observation and interviewing at a skills training center in Ghaziabad, a "modern" construction site in Delhi that employs workers from the training center, and a "traditional" construction site in Varanasi that employs informally trained workers. The researcher will pay particular attention to socio-linguistic data because understanding the definition of good quality work and the ability to reflect on one's own competence are signs of skilled labor. Furthermore, it is through talk in everyday interactions, both on and off the site, that connections between forms of labor and kinds of people (members of different classes and castes, or exhibiting different skills) are produced, challenged and negotiated. Other material to be analyzed include labor disputes, evaluations, work orders, and remunerations. The research will contribute to a better understanding of how local cultural forms affect capitalist development. It will also suggest possibilities for new and more inclusive ways of training workers and organizing labor processes. The project has the potential to affect policy decisions since the skill training organization involved in the project is heavily involved in policy decisions regarding the construction industry. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.