Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T21:01:25.145Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Decasticization, Dignity, and ‘Dirty Work’ at the Intersections of Caste, Memory, and Disaster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2019

Ramaswami Mahalingam ,
Srinath Jagannathan  and
Patturaja Selvaraj
Ramaswami Mahalingam
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Srinath Jagannathan
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Management
Patturaja Selvaraj
Affiliation:
Gettysburg College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

In this qualitative study we examine the role of caste, class, and Dalit janitorial labor in the aftermath of floods in Chennai, India, in 2015. Drawing from a variety of sources including interviews, social media, and news coverage, we studied how Dalit (formerly known as ‘untouchable’) janitors were treated during the performance of janitorial labor for cleaning the city. Our study focuses on two theoretical premises: (a) caste-based social relations reproduce inequalities by devaluing Dalit labor as ‘dirty work’; and (b) Dalit subjectivities, labor, and sufferings including occupational hazards become invisible and ungrievable forcing Dalits to provide a counter narrative to preserve the memory of their trauma and dignity injuries. We find that the discursive construction of janitorial labor as dirty work forced Dalit janitors to work in appalling and unsafe working conditions. Janitors suffered several dignity injuries in terms of social exclusion and a lack of recognition for their efforts and accomplishments. Specifically, we examine various ways through which caste, dirty work, and dignity intersected in the narrative accounts of Dalit janitors. We also explore memory and how processes of remembering and forgetting affected the dignity claims of Dalit janitors.

Keywords

casteDalitsdignitydirty workfloodsforgettingjanitorsmemorynarratives
Type
Article
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 213 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ackroyd, S. 2007. Dirt, work and dignity. In Bolton, S. C. (Ed.), Dimensions of dignity at work, 30–49. Oxford, United Kingdom: Butterworth-Heinemann.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aguiar, L. L. M., & Herod, A. (Eds.). 2006. The dirty work of neoliberalism: Cleaners in the global economy. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambedkar, B. R. 1968. The annihilation of caste with a reply to Mahatma Gandhi. Jalandhar, India: B. Patrika.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., & Kreiner, G. E. 1999. “How can you do it?”: Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review, 24(3): 413–434.Google Scholar
Bold, C., Knowles, R., & Leach, B. 2002. Feminist memorializing and cultural countermemory: The case of Marianne’s Park. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(1): 125–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, S. C. 2007. Dignity in and at work: Why it matters. In Bolton, S. C. (Ed.). Dimensions of dignity at work: 1–16. Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, J. 2009. Frames of war: When is life grievable? New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Carswell, G., & De Neve, G. 2014. T-shirts and tumblers: Caste, dependency and work under neoliberalisation in south India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 48(1): 103–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffey, D., Gupta, A., Hathi, P., Spears, D., Srivastav, N., & Vyas, S. 2017. Understanding open defecation in rural India: Untouchability, pollution, and latrine pits. Economic and Political Weekly, 52(1): 59–66.Google Scholar
Cruz, S. A., & Abrantes, M. 2014. Service interaction and dignity in cleaning work: How important is the organizational context? Employee Relations, 36(3): 294–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalwai, S. 2016. Caste on UK Shores. Economic and Political Weekly, 51(4): 7–13.Google Scholar
Dutton, J. E., Debebe, G., & Wrzesniewski, A. 2016. Being valued and devalued at work: A social valuing perspective. In Bechky, B. A. & Elsbach, K. D. (Eds.), Qualitative organizational research: Best papers from the Davis Conference on Qualitative Research, vol. 3: 9–51. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
Esposito, R. 2015. Persons and things, Cambridge, H. Z. (Trans.). London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Fine, G. A. 2012. Sticky reputations: The politics of collective memory in midcentury America. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gatade, S. 2015. Silencing caste, sanitizing oppression: Understanding Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(44): 29–35.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1968. Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Harmondsworth, United Kingdom: Penguin.Google Scholar
Gorringe, H. 2008. The caste of the nation: Untouchability and citizenship in south India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 42(1): 123–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guru, G. 2013. Limits of the organic intellectual: A Gramscian reading of Ambedkar. In Zene, C. (Ed.), The political philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and B. R. Ambedkar: Itineraries of Dalits and subalterns: 87–100. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hatton, E. 2017. Mechanisms of invisibility: rethinking the concept of invisible work. Work, Employment and Society, 31(2): 336–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodson, R. 2001. Dignity at work. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, E. C. 1951. Work and the self. In Rohrer, J.H. & Sherif, M. (Eds.), Social psychology at the crossroads: The University of Oklahoma lectures in social psychology: 313–323. Oxford, United Kingdom: Harper.Google Scholar
Hughes, E. C. 1958. Men and their work. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, E. C. 1962. Good people and dirty work. Social Problems, 10(1): 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huyssen, A. 2003. Present pasts: Urban palimpsests and the politics of memory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jagannathan, S., Selvaraj, P., & Joseph, J. 2016. The funeralesque as the experience of workers at the margins of international business: Seven Indian narratives. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 12(3): 282–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaoul, N. 2011. Casting the ‘sweepers.’ Local politics of sanskritisation, caste and labour. In Berti, D., Jaoul, N., & Kanungo, P. (Eds.), Cultural entrenchment of Hindutva: Local mediations and forms of convergence: 273–306. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jayarani, . 2015. Is your humanity casteless? Anandha Vikatan. December 17, 2015. http://www.vikatan.com/article.php?module=magazine&aid=113731.Google Scholar
Jensen, O. B. 2007. Culture stories: Understanding cultural urban branding. Planning Theory, 6(3): 211–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleinman, A., & Kleinman, J. 1994. How bodies remember: Social memory and bodily experience of criticism, resistance, and delegitimation following China’s cultural revolution. New Literary History, 25(3): 707–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, K. 2015. Workplace dignity: Communicating inherent, earned, and remediated dignity. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5): 621–646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, K. 2011. Blue-collar discourses of workplace dignity: Using out-group comparisons to construct positive identities. Management Communication Quarterly, 25(2): 353–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lundberg, H., & Karlsson, J. Ch. 2011. Under the clean surface: Working as a hotel attendant. Work, Employment and Society, 25(1): 141–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahalingam, R. 2007. Essentialism, power and the representation of social categories: An integrated perspective. Human Development, 50(6): 300–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahalingam, R., & Rabelo, V. C. 2013. Theoretical, methodological, and ethical challenges to the study of immigrants: Perils and possibilities. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2013(141): 25–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahalingam, R., & Rodriguez, J. 2006. Culture, brain transplants and implicit theories of identity. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 6(3–4): 452–462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mena, S., Rintamäki, J., Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. 2016. On the forgetting of corporate irresponsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4): 720–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondal, S. 2015. Flooded Chennai’s dirty secret: Dalits clean rotting mess. Hindustan Times. December 11, 2015. http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/flooded-chennai-s-dirty-secret-dalits-clean-rotting-mess/story-nyqoydzM32dnCoR9C1wZQI.html.Google Scholar
Narasimhan, B., Bhallamudi, S. M., Mondal, A., Ghosh, S., & Mujumdar, P. 2016. Chennai floods 2015: A rapid assessment. Bengaluru, India: Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research, Indian Institute of Science.Google Scholar
Narke, H., Kasare, M. L., Kamble, N. G., & Godgate, A. (Eds.) 2003. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and speeches, vol. 17, part 1. Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra.Google Scholar
Prashad, V. 2000. Untouchable freed: Social history of a Dalit community . New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ray, R., & Qayum, S. 2009. Cultures of servitude: Modernity, domesticity, and class in India. Stanford, CA: Stanford University PressGoogle Scholar
Ricoeur, P. 2004. Memory, history, forgetting. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricoeur, P. 1999a. Memory and forgetting. In Kearney, R. & Dooley, M. (Eds.), Questioning ethics: Contemporary debates in philosophy: 5–11. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. 1999b. Imagination, testimony and trust. In Kearney, R. & Dooley, M. (Eds.), Questioning ethics: Contemporary debates in philosophy: 12–17. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, V. (Ed.) 2002. The essential writings of B. R. Ambedkar. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sarkar, R., & Sarkar, A. 2016. Dalit politics in India: Recognition without redistribution. Economic and Political Weekly, 51(20): 14–16.Google Scholar
Sayer, A. 2011. Why things matter to people: Social science, values and ethical life. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanmugavelan, M., & Kadhiravan, . 2015. How singaara Chennai killed Mr. Palanichamy, a sanitation worker and an Arunthathiyar. Round Table India. December 28, 2015. https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8422:how-singaara-chennai-killed-mr-palanichamy-a-sanitation-worker-and-an-arunthathiyar&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132Google Scholar
Simpson, R., Slutskaya, N., & Hughes, J. 2011. Emotional dimensions of dirty work: men’s encounter with taint in the butcher trade. International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 4(2): 195–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, B. 2014. Unseen: The truth about India’s manual scavengers. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Soni-Sinha, U., & Yates, C. A. B. 2013. ‘Dirty work?’ Gender, race and the union in industrial cleaning. Gender, Work and Organization, 20(6): 737–751.Google Scholar
Stronach, I., Garratt, D., Pearce, C., & Piper, H. 2007. Reflexivity, the picturing of selves, the forging of method. Qualitative Inquiry, 13(2): 179203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sturken, M. 1999. Narratives of recovery: Repressed memory as Cultural Memory. In Bal, M., Crewe, J. V., & Spitzer, L. (Eds.), Acts of memory: Cultural recall in the present: 231–48. Lebanon, NH: University Press–New England.Google Scholar
Thorat, S. 2009. Dalits in India: Search for a common destiny. New Delhi: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thozhilalar koodam. 2015. Collateral damage—Dalit migrant workers in sanitation: Updates from the ground. December 10, 2015. http://tnlabour.in/migrant-workers/2926.Google Scholar
Yadav, S. 2015. Degrees of Safai Karamchari—A case of big boot. The Sabha. July 26, 2015. https://www.thesabha.org/sunil-yadav-vs-bmc-safai-karamchari-mumbai-tiss/07/2015/space/india/.Google Scholar
Zene, C. (Ed.). 2013. The political philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and B. R. Ambedkar: Itineraries of Dalits and subalterns. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar