50 – Living and Dying as a Migrant Worker: South Asian Scenarios
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the extreme predicament of the South Asian migrant workers, many of whom died on their way home, has gained unprecedented global attention. The images of large number of people marching towards their homes vividly illustrated the scale and precarity of labour migration in the region. However, this public attention faded as quickly as it flared, while the situation of the migrant workers stayed the same. For many South Asian migrant workers, living and working conditions remain precarious as they continue to be exposed to varying degrees of premature death from weather extremes (such as heat), unsafe working conditions, overwork, and poor health facilities.
Motivated by the above observations, some of the leading questions in this panel are: What does it mean to live and die as a migrant worker? How do migrant workers reflect on their everyday workplace circumstances? What happens to migrant workers who die at work, and what leads to their death? How do employers, colleagues, and family members deal with these deaths?
This panel seeks to expand the knowledge on South Asian labour migration by focusing on both the living and dying circumstances of migrant workers. We invite original ethnographic studies analysing the situation of migrant workers not only from a classical Marxist perspective of domination and exploitation, but also from an existential standpoint, shedding light on the living and dying conditions in the context of labour migration.
Convenors
Dr. Éva Rozália Hölzle - Prof. Dr. Nasreen Chowdhory -