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"Over the last decade, Nepal has witnessed significant urban growth and an expanding urban middle class. Glimpses of Hope tells the story of the people who enable some of the middle-class consumer practices in urban Nepal. The book focuses on workers in areas such as modern food-processing, water-bottling, housebuilding, and sand-mining industries and explores how workers see such forms of work, where union organization can help, and how work opportunities emerge along lines of gender and ethnicity. Although global labor relations have been mostly in decline for decades, this ethnography offers insights and glimpses of hope in terms of labor dynamics and the opportunities various jobs may afford"--

The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of how the Nepalese Maoist movement intersects with non-Maoist trade unions. I challenge dominant views of an enduring antagonism between the Nepalese Maoist movement and non-Maoist trade unions. Instead, I contend that for the urban municipality in the western Tarai the Maoist movement and non-Maoist labour unions co-reside within the boundaries of the town in a symbiotic relationship. I highlight how, while Maoists claim to represent labour in town, their actions focus largely on the protection of a specific segment of the town"s labour force. Maoists offer political patronage to formerly bonded labourers" neighborhoods but neglect other labour issues. This political vacuum surrounding the representation of labour has instead been filled by two non-Maoist labour unions that emerged in the wake of the insurgency period. I document the development of these groups and look at the various forms of collective action they employ, which include strikes, the mediation of labour disputes, monthly union meetings, and the institutionalisation of collective bargaining procedures. I suggest that an important effect of the new trade unionism in town is the incorporation of formerly bonded labourers into the unions" power structures.

AbstractThis article focuses on how people who formerly worked as bonded labourers adapt to the new realities of an insecure capitalist labour market. It examines how the past shapes the uncertain labour situation of the present, including resistance. The article reflects on the current experiences of precarious labour at industrial sites in western Nepal. It describes how former bonded labourers and their descendants have begun working as contract workers in a modern industrial food-processing factory, with the help of contractors related to them by kin. The article further shows that one of the defining features of their new life as contract labourers is its chronic precariousness. Undisguised forms of confrontation, such as open disregard for management instructions, are also part of their new reality in the labour market. Contract labourers are often strongly assertive in the face of managerial authority, and this assertiveness has been shaped largely by either past experiences or memories of bonded labour. The article contributes to debates about bonded labour and its transformations in South Asia. It also offers a reflection on the limited impact of the Nepali Maoist Revolution on precarious labour and on the ethnic dimensions of this segment of Nepali society. Finally, it contributes to discussions about industrialization and Adivasi communities in South Asia and beyond.

This article highlights the contribution of the Nepalese Maoist Movement in the dynamics of claiming symbolic space by formerly bonded labourers (freed Kamaiya) during the Nepalese Maoist revolution. In Nepal, the appropriation of symbolic space by marginalized groups throughout the revolutionary period remains in the shadows of the grand event of the Maoist revolution. Focusing on an urban municipality in Kailali district, in the far-western lowlands of Nepal, the article examines how the changing balances of power brought about by the revolutionary Maoist Movement allowed a group of formerly bonded labourers to squat and claim the land of a public airport. The article then addresses the question of whether and how the act of urban capture has benefitted the formerly bonded labourers, and what sorts of community politics emerged in the squatter camps where they settled. It is argued that the changes brought about by the revolutionary context improved the conditions that the formerly debt-bonded labourers encounter at workplaces but also led to the formation of a new political elite within the squatters community. The article contributes to an understanding of the complexities of political mobilization in revolutionary Nepal and the resulting consequences.

The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of how the Nepalese Maoist movement intersects with non-Maoist trade unions. I challenge dominant views of an enduring antagonism between the Nepalese Maoist movement and non-Maoist trade unions. Instead, I contend that for an urban municipality in the western tarai, the Maoist movement and non-Maoist labour unions co-reside, in a symbiotic relationship, within the boundaries of the town. I highlight how, while Maoists claim to represent labour in general, their actions focus largely on the protection of a specific segment of the town's labour force. Maoists offer political patronage to formerly bonded labourers' neighbourhoods but neglect other labour concerns. This political vacuum surrounding the representation of labour has instead been filled by two non-Maoist labour unions that emerged in the wake of the insurgency period. I document the development of these groups and look at the various forms of collective action they employ, which include strikes, the mediation of labour disputes, monthly union meetings and the institutionalization of collective bargaining procedures. I suggest that an important effect of the new trade unionism in town is the incorporation of formerly bonded labourers into the unions' power structures.

The past decades have seen significant urban insurrections worldwide, and this volume analyzes some of them from an anthropological perspective; it argues that transformations of urban class relationships must be approached in a way that is both globally informed and deeply embedded in local and popular histories, and contends that every case of urban mobilization should be understood against its precise context in the global capitalist transformation. The book examines cases of mobilization across the globe, and employs a Marxian class framework, open to the diverse and multi-scalar dynamics of urban politics, especially struggles for spatial justice