Between Work and Labor: Valuing Action in South Asia

As possibilities for and routines of work change—whether as parts of the economy expand, contract and relocate; as public-private partnerships and the gig economy grow; as welfare provision is strengthened in some places and shrinks in others; or as skill sets adapt or become obsolete—how are these changes experienced by workers? First, however, who is a worker? In the U.S. academic setting, one we all share, this question has been crucial for determining the possibilities for unionization among graduate students and adjunct faculty. In the contemporary moment, as the world grapples with Covid-19, the categorization of some work as “essential” highlights how certain kinds of work and workers are valorized for their centrality in reproducing everyday life, but it also exposes those who engage in such work, especially working-class communities of color, to elevated levels of risk and harm. The practices and politics of categorizing work anchor the five papers that make up this issue. They ask: What changing valuations of work, and of the larger economies they are part of, do distinctions among work activities reveal? What has changed in the promise of agricultural work to make “farmer” an undesirable category? What histories of caste and economic precarity do disavowals of labor among construction workers subtend? How does donor funding affect the value of salaried government work such that officials describe the devaluation of their work as a reduction to labor? How do public-private partnerships make room for new cadres of workers (e.g. experts) by devaluing previously existing workers, activities, and social relations? How does environmental jurisprudence, in labeling the work practices of scrap metal recycling as hazardous, impact workers’ experience of their craft?