Commodification in multiple registers: Child workers, child consumers, and child labor NGOs in India

Thangaraj, Miriam (2019) Commodification in multiple registers: Child workers, child consumers, and child labor NGOs in India. [Publications (Pre-joining)]

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Abstract

Using the term ‘commodity’ as an analytic, this chapter considers the persistence of an iconography of victimhood in dominant representations of child labor in India favored by ‘blanket ban’ NGOs. Drawing on a historiography of child labor legislations, dating from nineteenth century Britain, I explore ‘child labor’ as an affective commodity based on its victimhood imagery, which is readily recognized and consumed in global humanitarian markets today. In the context of NGOs in India, such affective representations also perform a particular NGO identity, one that delineates the “uncompromising” abolitionist stance of blanket ban NGOs, in contrast to the more accommodating stance of the Indian state. The affective logics of ‘child labor’ however, do not square well with the desires and aspirations of “real” working children who are economic agents and desiring subjects in their own right.

Item Type: Publications (Pre-joining)
Authors: Thangaraj, Miriam
Document Language:
Language
English
Uncontrolled Keywords: Commodification, Child workers, child consumers, and child labor NGOs in India
Subjects: Social sciences > Education
Divisions: Azim Premji University > School of Education
Full Text Status: Restricted
Related URLs:
URI: http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/4512
Publisher URL:

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