Engels’ ‘proletarisation’ and ‘great towns’ vis-à-vis dispossession, and gendered work in an informal economy

Abstract

Through a powerful investigation of Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), this paper aims to study the conditions of the working-class population in an Indian metropolis in present times. The paper borrows from an empirical case study of working-class population in Narela, a peripheral region in Delhi, to assess the relationship among labour, capital and state. With deepening inequality, changing labour market relations and spatial restructuring in cities, it becomes essential to understand this relationship in light of existing scholarships on South Asian cities focussing on everyday state, urban informality, social reproduction and periphery. The spatial reorganisation of Delhi was premised on aesthetic improvisation of the city, which aimed at driving the polluting/hazardous industries and working-class population to the peripheral area of Narela in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Drawing from the lived experiences of the displaced workers and new migrant workers, this study addresses concerns around housing and employment, therefore looking at a larger relationship among labour, state and capital. Explaining the process of peopling and industrialisation of this peripheral region, the paper critically analyses the contributions as well as limitations of Engels’ work in Indian urban studies.

Mobility, Translocality and Social Reproduction during COVID-19: Migrant Workers in Narela Industrial Estate, Delhi

“…Translocal networks associated with kinship, caste and community bonding in rural areas help workers to find work in a complex landscape of employment. Migration plays an important role in the emergence of translocal spaces; urban villages act as a place where new migrants who are socially embedded in their place of origin find or make space to meet, sing, mingle, drink and at times celebrate festivals of their villages (Chaudhary, 2021). The local landlords actively prevent such social embeddedness of migrant workers in Narela and therefore only those workers who have strong networks and associations with employers, labour contractors or other locals can negotiate to make their own space (for example, Naveen, Montu and Chaudhary ji ).…”

“…It is also not a coincidence that this embeddedness in the areas of origin happens along the lines of gender, where female migrants, who mostly migrate with male partners, are strongly and many times tied to villages because of cultural expectations related to social reproduction responsibilities. Take for instance the story of Ruby (and also see Chaudhary, 2021). The perspective on translocality suggests that the household serves as an important entity for analysing the gendered dynamics of circulation of people, ideas and material flows (Djurfeldt, 2021).…”

Migraciones internas como factor del crecimiento de la economía informal en el altiplano peruano

“…A nivel global se observa la profundización de la desigualdad, las relaciones cambiantes del mercado laboral y la reestructuración espacial en las ciudades (Chaudhary, 2021); las relaciones de las desigualdades sociales y sus posibles causas han sido ampliamente discutidas y documentadas (Silva, 2022), el crecimiento económico estaba vinculado al proceso de la "globalización" o la internacionalización del mercado, en todo esto, los procesos de la descolonización han facilitado el desarrollo de unas economías emergentes en América Latina, pero estos procesos intensificaron los flujos migratorios, a nivel interno como externo (Arango, 2000), generando grandes desplazamientos de poblaciones motivadas por factores económicos, individuales y familiares.…”