Internal labour migration in India

Jens Lerche, SOAS

Abstract: This presentation is concerned with superexploitation, spatial geopolitics of uneven development, racial stigma and kinship based invisible economies of care. It draws on ethnographic research carried out at different sites across India concerning Adivasi and Dalit seasonal internal labour migration. It argues that there are major analytical similarities between international labour migration and internal labour migration, similarities that tends to be underplayed. It shows how patterns of seasonal migration are driven by class relations marked by hierarchies of identity (caste and tribe) and by the spatial geopolitics of internal colonialism, while exploitation is spatially conditioned, occurring at the site of production but also through labour’s social reproduction both at the place of migration and in the home areas in the invisible economies of care.

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Organiser: Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies