Circles of Value : A Study of Working Lives of Informal Sector Traders in Delhi, India

This study revolves around the working lives of pheriwale, a group of self-employed traders within India’s vast informal economy. Pheriwale have been trading in Delhi for nearly a century and are involved in the second-hand clothing trade. Among the wide variety of street vendors and traders in the city, pheriwale are one of the most visibly women-dominated. They offer a door-to-door service, collecting used clothes in exchange for new kitchen utensils through barter, to the residents of the city and its suburbs. The collected used clothes are then sold to bulk-buyers in the marketplace (mandi), who in turn sell them forward after repair or washing; the used clothes can also end up in export factories, where they are disintegrated and become part of the rag industry. In addition, the pheriwale’s marketplace offers a cheap and affordable second-hand clothing market to the city’s low-income and working-class groups. Thus, pheriwale, like workers who are involved in recycling and belong to lower-caste groups, add value to the used clothes by collecting, sorting and bringing them back onto the market.Engaging with the concept of value enables this thesis to account for the value generated by pheriwale’s labour, as well as the aspects of their everyday working lives which they value. Locating these theoretical debates and empirical concerns through an intersectional framework inspired by Dalit feminist literature provides a more nuanced approach to exploring how caste, gender and class intersect. The research questions which guide this study include: How can the working lives of pheriwale women offer ways to unfold the multiple dimensions of value and deepen a theorisation of the concept? How do the pheriwale organise their working routines, and how are they as traders embedded within local, regional and global markets? How do experiences of waiting for state-issued documents and welfare benefits shape notions of value and pheriwale women’s relation to the state institutions? How does a feeling of having control over one’s time and energy at work by being self-employed frame notions of value in everyday working lives?Qualitative research inspired by ethnographic study was conducted at the pheriwale’s mandi in West Delhi, to facilitate this study. Primary empirical material includes conversations with pheriwale, observation and fieldnotes. The theoretical frame draws upon anthropological, Marxist and feminist theorisations of value, and intersectionality provides a lens to contextualise the discussion on value specifically for this study.The findings of this doctoral thesis highlight pheriwale’s working routines, and also how their trade is linked to local, regional and transnational flows of used clothes. Formalised state-issued documents are important for the pheriwale, who are primarily lower-caste women working in informal economic conditions, in order to secure welfare benefits. The feeling of having more control over time and energy and avoiding discriminatory and alienating work environments by being self- employed are important values at and beyond work for pheriwale

Waiting for welfare: experiences of street traders from Delhi, India

This article explores the nuances of the experiences of waiting for state-issued documents and state welfare. Waiting as an everyday experienceforms an important aspect of the relationship between socioeconomically marginalised groups and the state institutions. In order toexamine this relationship, this paper draws upon eight interviews,conducted during December 2017 to February 2018 and in January2019, among pheriwale. Pheriwale are self-employed traders, in Delhi,India, who collect huge amounts of second-hand/used-clothes and sellthem forward to make a living. They largely work in highly precariousinformal work environments, lack social security and depend onirregular income. However, as residents of India, they are also regulatedthrough various state measures such as being registered within thenational biometric database, as bank account holders and as recipientsof public welfare provisions. By focusing on the experiences ofpheriwale, findings show that waiting is shaped through intersectinghierarchies of gender, class and caste in the context of India. This articleelucidates that a conceptualisation of waiting cannot overlook how theact of waiting for state-issued documents is tied into politics ofrecognition and redistribution

Outsourcing Empathy

Reflections on the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent state measures on migrant workers

Contesting Closures: Deconstructing the Political Economy within Degrowth

This study explores the analytical and conceptual closures within political economy and degrowth literature. In order to explore these closures, poststructural theories of postcolonial and queer have been used. Derridian deconstruction has been applied to the degrowth literature to illuminate the silences and contradictions present within the texts. A deconstructive reading of the degrowth literature, through the lenses of postcolonial-queer theory, unravels that the texts reproduce heteronormativity and colonial underpinnings. Further, the texts overlook the materiality of bodies that political economy and processes of production are built upon. This study also shows that the works of feminist economists is marginalized within the degrowth literature. Yet, the thesis concludes that despite these critiques, degrowth literature challenges other analytical closures: of theory and praxis, state/market dichotomy and liberal notions of private property. Hence, it can build alliance with postcolonial-queer theories that resonate the critiques of such closures in order to envision alternative imaginaries

Conversations on Degrowth: Exploring the Slow Movement

In this conversational blog, we seek to explore slow movement in order to gain insight, challenge some of the norms and enjoy a conversation over tea! We aim to link degrowth and “slow” and explore whether slow could be compatible with degrowth and in what way