NRPPD Webinar Series 08

Title: Harvesting consent: South Asian tea plantation workers’ experience of fairtrade certification

Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann
Associate Professor, Labour & Gender Economics
International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS)
Kortenaerkade 12, 2518AX The Hague, The Netherlands

Abstract
Fairtrade certification of plantations seeks to productively intervene in the continuity of exploitative labor conditions that tea plantation workers in South Asia have experienced since the plantations’ inception under colonial rule. Based on a mixed methods study conducted in 2016 in India and Sri Lanka, this article engages with the puzzling reinterpretation of certification as a reward for workers’ commitment rather than for management’s compliance. By taking labor process theory on a journey to transnational labor governance in Indian and Sri Lankan tea plantations, the article argues that Fairtrade certification provides plantation companies with tools to ‘harvest workers’ consent’ to management’s pursuit of profit.
 
Dr. Karin Astrid Siegmann
Holding a PhD in agricultural economics, Karin Astrid Siegmann works as Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS). Her research has been concerned with how precarious work is fashioned at the intersection of global economic processes with local labour markets, stratified by gender and other social hierarchies as well as how precarious workers challenge and change the social, economic, and political structures that marginalize them. She currently coordinates comparative research on transactional sex as a livelihood strategy in the context of humanitarian crises. Besides, she is involved in initiatives that seek to develop, apply, and promote transformative methodologies, i.e., research approaches that embody progressive social change in the research process already.

Chiar : Prof.K N Harilal