Work in the Bazaar. The Organization of Work in a Social Milieu beyond State Regulation: India, 1930-2000

Dr. Sebastian Schwecke is returning to CeMIS with a new DFG-funded research project “Work in the Bazaar. The Orgnaization of Work in a Social Milieu beyond State Regulation: India, 1930-2000”. Dr. Schwecke had previously been at CeMIS as “Akademischer Rat”, working on informal financial markets in northern India. His work on labor in the bazaar analyzes the efforts and the failure of attempts to transform the conditions of work in a commercially dominated segment of the Indian informal sector through unionization. Based on unique source materials from private local archives in the north Indian city of Banaras (Varanasi), the project discusses the resilience and reproduction of socio-spatial structures as an essential component of informality, and their repercussions on the processes of formalizing labour.