Work, conceptualised as a concrete and practical activity, continues to remain an under-explored problematic in the field of Indian labour studies. The neglect of ethnographic research techniques could perhaps account for this shortcoming. Based on non-participant observation in a public sector company, this article examines the practices and attitudes of workers specialised in assembling printed circuit boards for electronic telephones. Despite the standardised nature of the product and its low economic value, operatives allocated to this task experience a significant degree of autonomy in their daily activities. In consonance with their personal inclinations and interests, they are not only free to structure their immediate physical environment but also to control their work pace and organise the way they perform their jobs. In all these spheres of practice, important variations can be observed from one individual to the next. This situation belies the conventional thesis equating semi-skilled occupations of the kind described here with job fragmentation, the absence of individual discretion and stringent managerial controls. The departure from the norm stems in part from the desire to preserve a harmonious industrial relations climate and in part from the non-strategic character of the end product—telephones—in the company’s portfolio. But slack disciplinary controls, a problem common to state-owned enterprises in general, could also explain the latitude granted to workers.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Altman, Irwin and Setha Low (eds). 1992. Place Attachment: Human Behavior and Environment. New York: Springer .
2.
Baldamus, William . 1967. Efficiency and Effort: An Analysis of Industrial Administration. London: Tavistock .
3.
Bernoux, Philippe . 1979. La Résistance Ouvrière et la Rationalisation: La Réappropriation du Travail (Worker Resistance and Rationalisation: The Reappropriation of Work) . Sociologie du Travail. 21 (1): 76–90 .
4.
Bernoux, Philippe , Dominique Motte and Jean Saglio . 1973. Trois Ateliers d’OS (Unqualified Workers: Three Workshops). Paris: Éd. Ouvrières .
5.
Braverman, Harry . 1974. Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press .
6.
Breviglieri, Marc . 2004. Habiter L’espace de Travail: Perspectives sur la Routine (Inhabiting the Workspace: Perspectives on Routine) . Histoire & Sociétés. 9: 19–29 .
7.
Brown, John Seely and Paul Duguid . 1991. Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Towards a Unified View of Working, Learning and Innovation . Organization Science. 2 (1): 40–57 .
8.
Burawoy, Michael . 1979. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
9.
Clot, Yves . 1995. Le Travail sans Homme? Pour une Psychologie des Milieux de Travail et de Vie (Work without Man? For a Psychology of Work Environments and Life). Paris: La Decouverte .
10.
Conein, Bernard and Eric Jacopin . 1993. Les Objets dans L’espace: La Planification dans L’action (Objects in Space: Planning in Action). In Bernard Conein , Nicolas Dodier and Laurent Thévenot (eds) Les Objets dans L’action: De la Maison au Laboratoire (Objects in Action: From the Household to the Laboratory), pp. 59–84. Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS .
11.
Conein, Bernard and Eric Jacopin . 1994. Action Située et Cognition: Le Savoir en Place (Situated Action and Cognition: Knowledge in Place) . Sociologie du Travail. 36 (4): 475–500 .
12.
Dejours, Christophe . 1992. Pathologie de la Communication: Situation de Travail et Espace Public: Le Cas du Nucléaire (The Pathology of Communication: Work Situations and Public Space. A Case Study of the Nuclear Industry). In Alain Cottereau and Paul Ladrière (eds) Pouvoir et Légitimite: Figures de L’espace Public (Power and Legitimacy: Figures in Public Space), pp. 177–201. Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS .
13.
Dodier, Nicolas . 1995. Les Hommes et les Machines: La Conscience Collective dans les Sociétés Technicisées (Men and Machines: Collective Conscience in Technicised Societies). Paris: Métailié .
14.
Dreyfus, Hubert . 1990. Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Vol. I. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press .
15.
Erbès-Seguin, Sabine . 2004. La Sociologie du Travail (The Sociology of Work). Paris: La Découverte .
16.
Freeland, Robert . 2001. Consent and Rational Choice . Contemporary Sociology. 30 (5): 446–48 .
17.
Friedman, Andrew . 1977. Responsible Autonomy versus Direct Control over the Labour Process . Capital & Class. 1: 43–57 .
18.
Friedmann, Georges . 1964. Le Travail en Mieltes: Spécialisation et loīsīrs (The Anatomy of Work: Labour, Leisure, and the Implications of Automation). Paris: Gallimard .
19.
Goffman, Erving . 1982. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Pantheon .
20.
Hammond, Kristian , Timothy Converse and Joshua Grass . 1995. The Stabilization of Environments . Artificial Intelligence. 72 (1–2): 305–27 .
21.
Hatzfeld, Nicolas . 2002. Les Gens d’usine: 50 ans d’histoire à Peugeot-Sochaux (Factory Hands: 50 Years of History at Peugeot-Sochaux). Paris: Éd. de l’Atelier .
22.
Kirsh, David . 1995. The Intelligent Use of Space . Artificial Intelligence. 73 (1–2): 31–68 .
23.
Koepp, Cynthia and Steven Kaplan (eds). 1986. Work in France: Representations, Meaning, Organization, and Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press .
Leroi Gourhan, André . 1991. Le Geste et la Parole (II): La Mémoire et les Rythmes (The Gesture and The Word: Memory and Rhythms). Paris: Albin Michel .
26.
Marx, Karl . 1976. Capital, Vol. I (trans. Ben Fowkes ). Harmondsworth: Penguin .
27.
Mead, G.H.1980. The Philosophy of the Present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
28.
Mohapatra, Prabhu . 2007. Situating the Renewal: Reflections on Labour Studies in India. Archives of Indian Labour. Available at http://www.indialabourarchives.org/publications/prabhu_mohapatra.htm. Accessed on 2 April 2007.
29.
Ngai, Pun . 2005. Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham, NC and Hong Kong: Duke University Press and Hong Kong University Press .
30.
Norman, Donald . 1993. Les Artefacts Cognitifs (Cognitive Artifacts). In Bernard Conein , Nicolas Dodier and Laurent Thévenot (eds) Les Objets dans L’action: De la Maison au Laboratoire (Objects in Action: From the Household to the Laboratory), pp. 15–34. Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS .
31.
Ortner, Sherry . 1996. Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal. In Terence J. McDonald (ed.) The Historic Turn in the Social Sciences, pp. 281–304. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press .
32.
Panjwani, Narendra . 1984. Living with Capitalism: Class, Caste, and Paternalism among Industrial Workers in Bombay . Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.). 18 (2): 267–92 .
33.
Parry, Jonathan , 1999. Introduction. In Jonathan Parry , Jan Breman and Karin Kapadia (eds) The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour, pp. ix–xxxvi. New Delhi: Sage .
34.
Parry, Jonathan , Jan Breman and Karin Kapadia (eds). 1999. The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour. New Delhi: Sage .
35.
Reynaud, Jean-Daniel . 1995. Le conflit, la négociation et la règle (Conflict, Negotiation and Rules). Toulouse: Octares .
36.
Roy, Donald . 1953. Work Satisfaction and Social Reward in Quota Achievement: An Analysis of Piecework Incentive . American Sociological Review. 18 (5): 507–14 .
37.
Roy, Donald . 1954. Efficiency and the Fix: Informal Intergroup Relations in a Piecework Machine Shop . The American Journal of Sociology. 60 (3): 255–66 .
38.
Roy, Donald . 1959–60. Banana Time: Job Satisfaction and Informal Interaction . Human Organization. 18 (4): 158–68 .
39.
Salais, Robert and Michael Storper . 1993. Les Mondes de production: Enqûete sur l’identité économique de la France (Worlds of Production: The Action Frameworks of the Economy). Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS .
40.
Schatzki, Theodore . 2001. Introduction: Practice Theory. In Theodore Schatzki , Karin Knorr-Cetina and Eike von Savigny (eds) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, pp. 1–14. London: Routledge .
41.
Schutz, Alfred . 1990. Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality. Dordrecht: Kluwer .
42.
Schwartz, Olivier . 1993. L’empirisme Irréductible (Irreducible Empiricism: Afterword). In Nels Anderson (ed.) Le Hobo: Sociologie du Sans-abri (On Hobos and Home-lessness/original title) (trans. A. Brigant ), pp. 265–308. Paris: Nathan .
43.
Schwint, Didier . 2005. La Routine dans le Travail de l’artisan (Routine in the Work of an Artisan) . Ethnologie Française. 3: 521–29 .
44.
Sheth, N.R.1968. The Social Framework of an Indian Factory. New Delhi: Oxford University Press .
45.
Suchman, Lucy . 1994. Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
46.
Taylor, Frederick Winslow . 1947. Scientific Management, pp. 117–97. New York: Harper Brothers .
47.
Terssac, Gilbert de . 1992. Autonomie et Travail (Autonomy and Work). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France .
48.
Uberoi, Patricia , Satish Deshpande and Nandini Sundar . 2007. Introduction: The Professionalisation of Indian Anthropology and Sociology—People, Places, and Institutions. In Patricia Uberoi , Satish Deshpande and Nandini Sundar (eds) Anthropology in the East: Founders of Indian Sociology and Anthropology, pp. 1–63. New Delhi: Permanent Black .
49.
Vallas, Steven . 1999. Rethinking Post-Fordism: The Meanings of Workplace Flexibility . Sociological Theory. 17 (1): 68–101 .
50.
Whipp, Richard . 1989. A Time to Every Purpose: An Essay on Time and Work. In Patrick Joyce (ed.) The Historical Meanings of Work, pp. 210–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
51.
Young, James . 2000. ELEC 201. Available at http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~elec201/Book/assembly.html. Accessed on 27 April 2007.
