IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/103969.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Roadwork: expertise at work building roads in the Maldives

Author

Listed:
  • Heslop, Luke
  • Jeffery, Laura

Abstract

This article engages critically with concepts of ‘skill’, ‘expertise’, and ‘capacity’ as they operate as markers of distinction and domination and shape migratory labour relations among road construction workers from across South Asia in the Maldives archipelago. The article examines roadwork at three levels: the professional biographies leading to ‘flexible specialization’ rather than technical expertise amongst Maldivian managers; the technical expertise and social incorporation of ‘skilled’ Sri Lankan supervisors; and the key material expertise of ‘non-skilled’ Bangladeshi labourers in precarious employment. Whilst discussions of South Asian labour migration have been dominated by caste and class, this article argues that it is important to consider how the cultural production and understanding of concepts such as ‘expertise’, ‘capacity’, and ‘exposure’ at worksites can (also) become distinguishing factors in (hierarchical) migratory labour relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Heslop, Luke & Jeffery, Laura, 2020. "Roadwork: expertise at work building roads in the Maldives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103969, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:103969
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103969/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephanie Barrientos & Uma Kothari & Nicola Phillips, 2013. "Dynamics of Unfree Labour in the Contemporary Global Economy," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1037-1041, August.
    2. Stephanie Ware Barrientos, 2013. "'Labour Chains': Analysing the Role of Labour Contractors in Global Production Networks," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1058-1071, August.
    3. Elizabeth Frantz, 2013. "Jordan's Unfree Workforce: State-Sponsored Bonded Labour in the Arab Region," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(8), pages 1072-1087, August.
    4. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1877-1900, October.
    5. Tom Barnes & Krishna Shekhar Lal Das & Surendra Pratap, 2015. "Labour Contractors and Global Production Networks: The Case of India's Auto Supply Chain," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(4), pages 355-369, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Chambers & Ayesha Ansari, 2018. "Ghar Mein KÄ m Hai (There is Work in the House)," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 141-163, August.
    2. Alessandra Mezzadri & Kaustav Banerjee, 2021. "The afterlife of industrial work: Urban-to-rural labour transitions from the factory to the informal economy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-158, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Andrew Crane & Genevieve LeBaron & Jean Allain & Laya Behbahani, 2019. "Governance gaps in eradicating forced labor: From global to domestic supply chains," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(1), pages 86-106, March.
    4. Christina Stringer & Steve Hughes & D Hugh Whittaker & Nigel Haworth & Glenn Simmons, 2016. "Labour standards and regulation in global value chains: The case of the New Zealand Fishing Industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(10), pages 1910-1927, October.
    5. Matias Ramirez & Ian Clarke & Laurens Klerkx, 2018. "Analysing intermediary organisations and their influence on upgrading in emerging agricultural clusters," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1314-1335, September.
    6. Khandakar Shahadat & Shahzad Uddin, 2022. "Labour Controls, Unfreedom and Perpetuation of Slavery on a Tea Plantation," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 522-538, June.
    7. Lakshmi Parvathy & Rajalaxmi Kamath, 2024. "Labour Contractors (Thekedaars) to Human Resource Companies: Labour Market Intermediaries in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 67(1), pages 197-219, March.
    8. Malanski, Priscila Duarte & Schiavi, Sandra & Dedieu, Benoît & Damasceno, Julio Cesar, 2022. "Labor in agrifood value chains: a scientometric review from Scopus," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 25(3), March.
    9. Gabriela Gutierrez-Huerter O & Stefan Gold & Alexander Trautrims, 2023. "Change in Rhetoric but not in Action? Framing of the Ethical Issue of Modern Slavery in a UK Sector at High Risk of Labor Exploitation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 35-58, January.
    10. Jihye Kim & Wendy Olsen & Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, 2023. "Predicting Child-Labour Risks by Norms in India," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(6), pages 1605-1626, December.
    11. Krzywdzinski, Martin & Lechowski, Grzegorz & Jürgens, Ulrich, 2018. "L’inéluctable évolution des modèles productifs chez les constructeurs automobiles chinois et indiens," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 12, pages 1-20.
    12. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "The informalization of capital and interlocking in labour contracting networks," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 16(2), pages 124-139, April.
    13. Elsa Underhill & Dimitria Groutsis & Diane Broek & Malcolm Rimmer, 2018. "Migration Intermediaries and Codes of Conduct: Temporary Migrant Workers in Australian Horticulture," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 675-689, December.
    14. Helwing Veronique & Verfürth Philip & Franz Martin, 2023. "Trucking (un)limited – the impact of digital platforms on labour in production networks of logistics," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 67(4), pages 177-188, December.
    15. Shalini Grover & Thomas Chambers & Patricia Jeffery, 2018. "Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 123-140, August.
    16. Johanna Katharina Schenner, 2017. "The Gangmaster Licensing Authority: An Institution Able to Tackle Labour Exploitation?," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 19(3), pages 357-381.
    17. Keshab Das, 2016. "Situating Labour in the Global Production Network Debate: As if the ‘South’ Mattered," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 59(3), pages 343-362, September.
    18. Sallie Yea & Stephanie Chok, 2018. "Unfreedom Unbound: Developing a Cumulative Approach to Understanding Unfree Labour in Singapore," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(5), pages 925-941, October.
    19. Ronaldo Munck, 2020. "Work and Capitalist Globalization: Beyond Dualist Reason," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 371-386, September.
    20. Shyamain Wickramasingha, 2023. "Geographies of dissociation: informality, ethical codes and fragmented labour regimes in the Sri Lankan apparel industry," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(6), pages 1191-1211.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:103969. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.