Doctoral Dissertation Research: Building Capitalism: Labor Ideologies in the Construction Industry in North India

芝加哥大学博士生亚当萨金特在苏珊·加尔博士的指导下，将对资本主义发展的当地文化动力进行研究。这项研究将在印度通过对建筑工人新技能培训方案的人种学描述进行，该方案旨在将围绕种姓、亲属关系和居住关系组织的农村移民劳动力转变为围绕技能组织的现代劳动力。 萨金特假设，技能培训项目实际上可能产生了他们声称要克服的差异形式，并使非技能基础的区别永久化，而不是消除。研究人员将通过参与者观察和在加济阿巴德技能培训中心的访谈来探讨这一假设，加济阿巴德是德里的一个“现代”建筑工地，雇用培训中心的工人，以及瓦拉纳西的一个“传统”建筑工地，该工地雇用的是非正式培训的工人。 研究人员将特别注意社会语言数据，因为理解高质量工作的定义和反思自己能力的能力是熟练劳动的标志。 此外，正是通过现场内外的日常互动中的谈话，劳动形式和各种人（不同阶级和种姓的成员，或表现出不同技能的人）之间的联系才得以产生、挑战和协商。其他需要分析的材料包括劳资纠纷、评估、工作订单和报酬。这项研究将有助于更好地了解当地文化形式如何影响资本主义发展。 它还将提出培训工人和组织劳动过程的新的和更具包容性的方法的可能性。 该项目有可能影响政策决定，因为参与该项目的技能培训组织大量参与有关建筑业的政策决定。资助这项研究也支持社会科学家的教育。

University of Chicago doctoral student Adam Sargent, with the guidance of Dr. Susan Gal, will conduct research on local cultural dynamics of capitalist development. The research will be carried out in India through an ethnographic account of new skill training programs for construction workers, which is intended to transform a rural, migrant workforce organized around caste, kinship and residential relations into a modern one organized around skill. Sargent hypothesizes that the skill training programs may actually be producing the forms of difference that they purport to overcome and perpetuating rather than eliminating non-skills-based distinctions.The researcher will explore this hypothesis through participant observation and interviewing at a skills training center in Ghaziabad, a "modern" construction site in Delhi that employs workers from the training center, and a "traditional" construction site in Varanasi that employs informally trained workers. The researcher will pay particular attention to socio-linguistic data because understanding the definition of good quality work and the ability to reflect on one's own competence are signs of skilled labor. Furthermore, it is through talk in everyday interactions, both on and off the site, that connections between forms of labor and kinds of people (members of different classes and castes, or exhibiting different skills) are produced, challenged and negotiated. Other material to be analyzed include labor disputes, evaluations, work orders, and remunerations.The research will contribute to a better understanding of how local cultural forms affect capitalist development. It will also suggest possibilities for new and more inclusive ways of training workers and organizing labor processes. The project has the potential to affect policy decisions since the skill training organization involved in the project is heavily involved in policy decisions regarding the construction industry. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.