Presentation short abstract

A presentation of participatory action research (PAR) with garment and textile workers in India. The method and workshop were conducted through sewing, patching, and narrative building, revealing the ontologies and practices of care, which play out as both emancipatory and confining.

Presentation long abstract

My research focuses on garment workers in India, who migrate from rural villages and forgo subsistence livelihoods for labour-intensive factory work in urban areas. The migration is a result of changing biophysical conditions (e.g., depleting groundwater, soil degradation) and lack of jobs and income. As most of the garment workers are women from Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi communities, their choice to leave the village is also political, as they reject caste practices, patriarchy, and gender norms while gaining autonomy in the city. However, their entanglement with new forms of casteism and gender specificities places them in new forms of precarity under the sphere of modernisation (neoliberalism) within the urban environment.

The presentation aims to illustrate the workers' narratives, which they shared through the PAR method of sewing and patching together the anatomy of a garment. The intention of the workshop was to replicate the factory work process at a much slower pace while reflecting on their histories and lived experiences. I will discuss the outcomes and the challenges along with their narratives on care. The notion of 'care' manifests in both rural and urban geographies. Their understanding of ‘care’ is ambivalent: at times the act is attaining freedom through resistances, and at times it is burdensome and confining, while also being appropriated by the ‘state’ and ‘transnational corporations’. The presentation will also reflect on how ecology, geography and the relationship of the workers with the environment are understood and perceived through this study.