Awards

• Short-listed for American Sociological Association: Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award 2014
• Short-listed for Distinguished Scholarly Book Award, Section on Labor and Labor Movements, American Sociological Association 2014
• Shortlisted for American Sociological Association: Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award 2014.
• Winner of Book Award, Sociology of Development Section, American Sociological Association 2014
• Winner of Outstanding Book Award, Global Division, Society for the Study of Social Problems 2014
• Winner of Society for the Study of Social Problems Global Division Outstanding Book Award 2014
• Winner of Society for the Study of Social Problems Global Division Outstanding Book Award 2014.

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9781107025721

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Reviews

What a splendid book! In the face of market fundamentalism, Rina Agarwala shows how informal workers in India have managed to exploit competitive politics to wring concessions from the state. A chink of light in a bleak scene. Labor optimists and pessimists alike must read this book. - Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley Combining rigorous scholarship with remarkable empathy for her research subjects, Rina Agarwala illuminates the surprising capacity of informal sector workers in India to win victories even as the government turned to market-oriented policies. Her study forces us to think differently about the intersection of poverty, unions, government, and social movements. - Fred Block, University of California, Davis The global rise of neoliberalism, and its increasing strength, means that whether in India or the United States, labor must develop new strategies and forms and organize new constituencies or be increasingly marginalized. As Agarwala brilliantly shows, neoliberalism weakens traditional union forms, increases the importance of informal labor, and - most importantly - creates possibilities for informal workers to act through new organizational forms that pressure the state. - Dan Clawson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst This book explores the remarkable and surprising organizational successes of women workers in two sectors of India's vast informal economy. In a masterful comparative analysis that cuts across three Indian states, Agarwala not only explains how these women have articulated and claimed rights as workers, but also provides a fascinating account of how their mobilization marks a new paradigm in labor organizing. For anyone interested in understanding the momentous social and economic transformation that India is going through, this is a must-read. - Patrick Heller, Brown University This is a powerful and measured analysis of how India's informal working class makes effective citizenship claims to the state. Dispelling the myth of an inevitable decline of the labor movement in an age of alleged neo-liberalization, this fascinating India story offers an indispensable beacon of hope for working people worldwide. - Ching Kwan Lee, University of California, Los Angeles This is a beautifully crafted, path-breaking study that upends conventional wisdom about the relentless demise of labor movements. Agarwala's lucid analysis of the ways in which precariously employed informal workers in India have organized to improve their status bristles with insights on every page. This superb book is a must-read not only for specialists in South Asia but for anyone interested in the future of the labor movement, in the global North as much as in the South. - Ruth Milkman, City University of New York

'... this is a highly readable, well-researched, informative, important book. Agarwala shows careful, thorough methodological and conceptual thinking while responding to and building on a large body of scholarly research. Using considerable quantitative data and extensive interviews with government officials and scores of women working in the informal economy in three states (Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu), the author investigates and largely dismantles the notion that poor often-illiterate workers with no formal employer can organize as workers. Summing up: highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' G. M. Massey, Choice 'Rina Agarwala's book is refreshingly different ... It throws up new ideas about the informal economy through its bold analysis. The author's background of political science and sociology helps raise the analysis above the mundane cost-benefit analysis framework. The most important aspect of the book is that it shows that though informal workers are the wretched of the earth, they are learning to raise their heads and fight for their dignity. It is definitely a very important contribution to the study of informal labour, and should be of interest to all social scientists.' Sharit K. Bhowmik, Economic and Political Weekly 'Rina Agarwala's exciting volume Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India presents itself to the reader as a tale of informal workers' strategies to organize and attain welfare benefits from the Indian state in a context of rapid economic growth and of progressive increase in inequalities ... Agarwala's analysis is thus multifaceted, sophisticated and rich with insightful findings.' Annalisa Murgia, American Journal of Sociology 'Who then speak for the IS workers and the growing number of casuals in the formal labor market? This is where the book of Rina Agarwala - Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India - comes in as a provocative piece of scholarship on the role of traditional unionism in today's highly segmented labor market that is continuously churning under the pressures of globalization ... Agarwala's book challenges students and scholars of the labor movement to re-think state-labor relations.' Rene E. Ofreneo, Asian Politics and Policy 'Agarwala's work represents an important contribution to the literature in this area. Her analysis is extremely rich both theoretically and empirically ... Advanced scholars interested in changes in the nature of work and the conditions of workers globally should pay attention to this book.' Denise Benoit Scott, Gender and Society

Author Information

Rina Agarwala is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Government from Cornell University, an MPP in Political and Economic Development from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. Agarwala is the co-editor of Whatever Happened to Class? Reflections from South Asia (2008). She has published articles on informal work and gender in the International Labor Journal, Political Science, Research in the Sociology of Work, Theory and Society, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Critical Asian Studies, Social Forces and the Indian Journal of Labour Economics. She has worked on international development and gender issues at the United Nations Development Program in China, the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, and Women's World Banking in New York.

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