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Expectations and rewards of modernity: Commitment and mobility among rural migrants in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

University of Sussex, School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex, BNI 9SJ, UK

This article presents a critique of a discourse, commonly found in anthropological and historical accounts, that stereotypes rural labour migrants as unreliable workers who are not yet fully committed to industrial work regimes and who keep prioritising rural responsibilities above industrial needs. Based on data collected in the garment industry of Tirupur, south India, it is shown that rural migrants can as well be conceived of by their urban employers as more committed and hardworking recruits than the so-called 'locals'. Employers' discourses of migrant workers are examined and four case histories of migrants are discussed to illustrate that labour commitment is not just the mechanical outcome of a long-standing familiarity with an industrial and modern life-style. Rather, the commitment of migrant workers has to be understood in relation to their expectations of and encounters with modernity, which for most migrants are shaped through ex periences of socio-economic and spatial mobility. Commitment can be expected to be high where rewards are substantial. The article engages with modernity both as a dis course about the nature of industrial employment and life-styles, and as a set of expectations and achievements which comprise the experiences of modernity for those involved.

Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 37, No. 1-2, 251-280 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/006996670303700111


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