Writing Labour: Stone Quarry Workers in Delhi

by Mohammad Talib

Overview

This book focuses on labour located beyond the expanding rim of south Delhi and beneath the radar of effective law and policy. Building upon the personal narratives of the people who constitute this labouring class, this study also attempts to record their dwindling oral tradition. This monograph brings to the fore the dynamics of their survival against the wider sphere of India's working class. It offers novel ways of entering the inner world of these masses to interpret their symbolism and significance in the informal economy. It questions the view that these people are passive objects and instead tries to portray them as active negotiators of their own circumstances, however dismal.
This book is crucial to the current debates about labour and development studies. It draws public attention to this section of humanity whose story of social exclusion and struggle for survival is rarely heard amidst the counter narratives on the boom in the formal globalized economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199088249
Publisher:	OUP India
Publication date:	10/06/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Mohammad Talib, Professor, University of Oxford

Mohammad Talib is Fellow, Anthropology of Muslim Societies, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

Preface, Acknowledgements, List of Tables;

Introduction to Writing Labour;
1. Living Off the Stones: Conditions of Life;
2. Thinking through the Stones: Workers' Images and Expressions;
3. Stirrings from the Stones: Collective Protests and Struggles;
4. Dots on the Stones: Personal Profiles;
5. Sites of World-Making: Ideology and Contestations;
6. Being with the Stone Quarry Workers: Field Reminiscences and Reflections; Conclusions and Implications
Appendix, Glossary, Bibliography, Name Index, Subject Index