Project A - Ancillary Research Group: The Threat to the Order of Everyday Life for Indian Workers in India within the Context of a Bi-National Company Merger
Abstract
This project explores the conflicts between workers and managers at a German-Indian engine parts manufacturing plant in Pune, India that resulted out of the company's merger and led to protests.
Using ethnographic methods, it examines which orders were perceived to be under threat from the perspective of the different groups involved as well as “when” and “how”. It looks at how the various status groups (i.e. workers, managers, and executives) dealt with the changes to the "normal"/"proper" order, and especially which kinds of emotions were attached to these changes. Furthermore, the project questions the role that these emotions played in the internal and external communication of threat perceptions. It analyses the ways in which the conflict influenced the creation of new boundaries between groups as well as how individuals assigned themselves to groups or were assigned to them by others as part of the identity-building process, especially against the backdrop of the narrative of a threat stirred up by the media that emphasized the loss of Indian traditions and values through western influences.
Project Team
Project Leader:
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Alex
Ph.D. Student:
Maximilian Priester-Lasch, M.A.
Academic Disciplines and Orientation
Ethnology
Project-related Lectures and Publications
- 31.01.2014 (mit Prof. Dr. Boris Nieswand) - ""Raum als Dimension bedrohter Ordnungen"; Vortrag im Rahmen des SFB 923-Kolloquiums.
Priester-Lasch, Maximilian
- 18.07.2014 - "Die Veränderung der lebensweltlichen Ordnung indischer Arbeitnehmer im Kontext einer bi-nationalen Firmenfusion", Vortrag im Rahmen des SFB 923-Kolloquiums.