Paper short abstract

This paper examines contracting and subcontracting at oil projects in the Arabian Sea. I argue that contracting and subcontracting must be considered through the lens of migrant, manual labor, and I illustrate the political potential of networks in post-Fordist infrastructure projects.

Paper long abstract

Building an offshore oilrig is a resource intensive activity - costing over half a billion dollars and requiring thousands of workers. Unlike large-scale infrastructure projects of the Fordist era, the state often seems to disappears from these projects. In the present-day, oil rigs are contracted and subcontracted out, and contracts are either between companies or between companies and workers. This process of contracting and subcontracting is discussed in business literature as a way for companies to overcome the challenges of maintaining technical expertise or knowledge in-house. This approach ignores the impact of subcontracting on semi-skilled and unskilled workers and obfuscates the ways in which laborers develop political projects to respond to the new working conditions imposed by subcontracting.

In this paper, I examine how contracting and subcontracting impacts management practices at oil rigs. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted from 2009 to 2011 in India and the United Arab Emirates, I argue that contracting and subcontracting must be considered through the lens of migrant, manual laborers. Applying this perspective opens a space to interrogate business practices and the management of workers. Here, I focus on safety practices as key moments where ideologies of contracting and labor management converge. Not only do I examine managers' rationales, but I investigate worker practices in regards to safety standards and job subcontracting. Juxtaposing these perspectives shows that mitigating risk is a central motivation for all parties and highlights the centrality of networks in spreading risk.