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- Convenor:
-
Rahul Ranjan
(School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Kenneth Bo Nielsen
(University of Oslo)
- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Resilience and wellbeing
- Location:
- CB4.8, Chancellor's Building
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 25 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis has had a traumatic effect on Indian society. Using 'crisis' as a framework, this panel investigates how the COVID crisis is not singular. It presents empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated accounts of COVID-19 and institutional failure in governance.
Description
By using the crisis as a framework, the panel presents a multidimensional approach to understanding the effects of COVID-19 on the lifeworld of the marginalised communities in India. The papers in the panel pursue two interrelated concerns: First, they examine the governance aspect, highlighting institutional failures, a lack of political will, and ideological warfare; second, they firmly position the crisis—as a narrative tool—at the heart of marginality, thereby explaining the effects of COVID-19 on communities that continue to remain at the nation’s margins. The panel presents varied voices and granular narratives of sufferings that structured the lives of the poorest and dispossessed in the country during the crisis. It dovetails the reshaping of material forces that were crucially impacted by the failure of governance with the social lifeworld of those containing what can be referred to as inter-generational trauma. This panel offers a robust account of the crisis by combining these two distinct but complementary dimensions of COVID-19 in India. It will greatly interest scholars and researchers in crisis studies, governance, medical anthropology, public policy, politics, sociology, and South Asian studies.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Wednesday 25 June, 2025, -Paper short abstract
This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on sanitation and waste workers in Delhi, highlighting how historical casteism and current policies intersect to perpetuate their precarity, which were further exacerbated during the pandemic.
Paper long abstract
The Last of Frontline Workers: Casteism and Precarity Among Sanitation and Waste Workers in Delhi
With the coming of Covid-19 pandemic, there was an ‘apparent’ change in the way sanitation workers and waste workers were perceived. Many of them were greeted by applause and garlands. This palpable change in the societal attitude and them being referred as ‘frontline workers’ gave a ray of hope, that the pandemic might prove to be crucial in catalysing the reforms long needed in the realm of sanitation and waste management crisis. However, looking at the precarious conditions of the workers in the four last years, there is a little that has changed. The age-old relation of caste and sanitation and waste work continues to plague the present-day situation. If anything at all, the pandemic has further exposed the apathy of government institution and casteist societal attitude towards the workers. Given this, this paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on sanitation and waste workers in Delhi, highlighting how historical casteism and current policies intersect to perpetuate their precarity. Despite being labelled as frontline workers during the pandemic, these workers continue to face severe socio-economic challenges and caste-based discrimination.
Key words: Covid-19, caste, waste, sanitation work, frontline workers
Paper short abstract
Drawing from Ghosh’s (2019) argument on how the government “uses and abuses” the inequality for its benefit, the paper analyses how the government socially reproduced and abused the crisis of care to furthering gender and economic inequality using the case study of ASHA workers during the pandemic.
Paper long abstract
Regardless of a country's GDP, caregiving responsibilities predominantly fall upon women within households, mostly without compensation. Scholars assert that the capitalist system relies on, or arguably exploits, provisioning, caregiving, and interpersonal interactions that foster and sustain social connections, all while assigning them no monetary value and treating them as if they were free. Consequently, gender inequality is essential for the functioning of the market. During the Covid-19, the government, lacking adequate preparation to address the crisis by supplementing healthcare facilities, imposed caregiving responsibilities on women within families and healthcare workers. The government has been exploiting women's labour for years, even before the pandemic as is evident in how government schemes typically devalue women's work by offering minimal wages, as seen with anganwadi employers, or failing to provide payment, as is the case with ASHA workers.
Drawing from Ghosh’s (2019) argument on how the government “uses and abuses” the inequality for its advantage, the paper attempts to analyse how the government socially reproduced and abused the crisis of care to furthering gender and economic inequality using the case study of ASHA workers during the Covid-19 lockdown in India.
Paper short abstract
This paper is situated at the crossroads of biomedical crisis, longstanding inequality and India's governance policy during the COVID-19.
Paper long abstract
The paper provides a unique outlook to ways in which COVID-19 coalesced with the longstanding inequality in India. By looking at the series of policy recommendation, government orders and situated forms of responses by the state government, this paper offers a systematic review of governance as the key contention in managing, consolidating and communicating the COVID-19. It makes a theoretical undercutting by proposing that COVID-19 reflects and become a window to thinking about polycrisis.