From Urban Erasure to Rural Reorganisation: Status, Survival, and Rural Mobilisation Among Mumbai's Ex-Millworkers
**This event is open to those of the anthropology community ONLY**
❗️There will also be lunch with the speaker on the same day prior to the colloquium @12:30pm in room 51A❗️
Globally, large-scale industrial closures and layoffs have caused a decline in labour mobilisation. However, Mumbai's retrenched textile workforce stands out as a strong exception, demonstrating remarkable resilience and continued political engagement. Over the past two decades, ex-millworkers in Mumbai have organised for housing on former mill lands and alternative employment. Even more impressive is the political activism of retrenched workers in rural areas. Many ex-millworkers returned to their villages as a survival strategy. Historically, textile mill workers enjoyed a higher social status in these villages, which sharply declined after job losses. Broader changes in the rural political economy also contributed to this marginalisation. This paper explores the rural reorganisation of these ex-millworkers. The research is based on 14 months of fieldwork between 2008 and 2009, complemented by longitudinal visits from 2012 to 2022. The fieldwork was conducted in the Greater Mumbai region and in villages across the Konkan and Western Maharashtra regions. The paper describes how ex-millworkers in rural areas set up union offices, held regular meetings, and coordinated trips to Mumbai for rallies. Importantly, it examines the workers' lived experiences across social, political, cultural, and economic aspects of village life. Finally, it highlights the profound impact of political mobilisation for urban housing—not merely as a material demand but as a vital means of restoring their diminished social standing. Through this collective effort, workers successfully reclaimed their self-worth within the rural setting.
