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CHAIRPERSON

Assoc Prof Vineeta Sinha, South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

Using work-place ethnography at a production site in Sri Lanka, this paper details the interactions between management and labour during a struggle over attempted union formation. While academic debates on union politics in the Global South have tended to focus on effective union and solidarity campaign, my research in contrast shows that collective labour struggles may not always yield beneficial outcomes for workers. I argue that three decades of neo-liberal policies suggests complexities that labour rights advocates would potentially prefer to shy away from, and if we are to be earnest about re-politcizing union rights in an era of economic liberalisation, we need to sharpen our gaze on these ruptures too. Because, I suggest, that paying detailed attention to the political economy of labour highlights a complex situation in which fostering unionisation, despite its importance for the collective will of labour, may require handwork.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Kanchana Ruwanpura is usually found at the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Development Geography and is the Deputy Director for the MSc programme in Environment and Development. She has her PhD and MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, England and her BA in Economics from William Smith College, USA. Her research topics reflects her training in heterodox economics and development studies, which made her interested to interrogate ‘development’ as a global process. She has explored women’s livelihoods in war-affected eastern Sri Lanka, post-tsunami processes of reconstruction, and labour processes and ethical trading through her research, which has been published in numerous peer review journals – including Feminist Economics, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Gender, Place and Culture, Journal of Economic Geography and Geoforum. Dr. Ruwanpura’s research has been funded by the ESRC, UNICEF and the British Academy – and is spending this semester at the Asia Research Institute at NUS (National University of Singapore) as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow.

REGISTRATION

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