Papers by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil
The spatial spread of the female child deficit in India has been explored in terms of hot spots (... more The spatial spread of the female child deficit in India has been explored in terms of hot spots (with high deficits) and cold spots (with more female-favourable child sex ratios). It has been argued, using the Census of India data from individual censuses, that there is a contagion effect for both hot spots and cold spots. This paper takes this discussion forward by asking whether such an effect can be seen across censuses. To do so, it develops the concept of an epicentre to see whether a hot or cold spot in one census spreads shock waves across a wider region in later censuses. The longitudinal analysis of child sex ratios over three censuses—1991, 2001 and 2011—shows that the hot spots are epicentres for the spread of female child deficits, while the cold spots display a reverse effect.
The paper contributes to the literature that examines the connections between local and global by... more The paper contributes to the literature that examines the connections between local and global by extending the focus of cross-border production circuits to the hinterlands within the nation. A secondary informal circuit is conceptualised in order to argue how the informal sector is coexisting with the formal sector and contributing to the global market. For this purpose, the case of the cashew nut processing industry in Kerala, India, has been examined. The network of clandestine home-based cashew processors identified during the field study in Kerala illustrates the less visible local nodes of the global cashew circuit. The study also explores the informal workers' restricted options and choices due to their gender, health issues, age and financial liabilities.
This article is an attempt to understand the heterogeneous nature of home-based cashew workers in... more This article is an attempt to understand the heterogeneous nature of home-based cashew workers in Kerala. The article uses narrative approach to illustrate the lived experiences of the home-based workers. The evidence from the field study in Kollam district reveals that the majority of the workers engaged in the home-based processing, voluntarily or involuntarily, are women. The home-based processing is considered as an additional option to earn income by these workers. As a result, despite the ban on cottage processing of cashew, it is operating in a clandestine manner. The study shows that the enhancement of individual and collective capabilities of the women in the informal sector requires an understanding of their multiple identities, as well as an acknowledgement of the existing gender relations and social structure.
Conference Presentations by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil
The global commodity chain, global value chain, global production network and world city network ... more The global commodity chain, global value chain, global production network and world city network employ different analytical and methodological lenses to examine the national and transnational flows in the current phase of economic globalization. Many academicians and policy makers recognize the need for an integrated approach that focuses on geographies of labour and capital to understand the critical linkages in the production networks. The cities have become a critical node in the commodity chains primarily for managing the command and control functions. The capital is concentrated in the cities due to the agglomeration economies and availability of skilled labour as well as the provisioning of migrant labour from hinterlands. The garment industry, a buyer-driven commodity chain, is the second largest employment provider in India after agriculture. Drawing on the government data sources on the garment manufacturers and skill development programme for the garment workers, the paper analyses the geographic concentration of garment clusters in the urban and peri-urban regions and the state-sponsored skilled labour creation and mobility of the garment workers from the rural to these production centres. The paper has significant policy implication in understanding the role of state and private sector in channelling the changes in the commodity chain and in examining the processes that link the urban and rural through labour-capital mobility.
The global production circuits have secondary consequences within a nation. The prominent network... more The global production circuits have secondary consequences within a nation. The prominent network based approaches, such as Global Commodity Chain, Global Value Chain, Global Production Network and World City Network, employ different analytical and methodical lenses to examine the capitalist expansion across borders and labor relations at the bottom end of the circuits. Many theoreticians and policy-makers recognize the need to approach the national and transnational flows through an integrated migration framework to examine the critical linkages in the current phase of economic globalization. The Government of India initiated the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) to channelize the excess labor supply, resulting from the demographic dividend, into the global production circuits. Contrary to the ideological differences among the academicians, the surplus labor begins to be seen as a boon to the economy and imparting skill to the labor as a challenge. Against this background, drawing on recent scholarship on global production circuits and labor migration and the government data sources on skill training of the garment workers, the paper adds to the literature that examines the global-local linkages by exploring a new node in which the surplus labor is being skilled and made mobile through the NSDM to cater to the demands of the global garment circuit.
The spatial spread of the female child deficit in India has been explored in terms of hot spots (... more The spatial spread of the female child deficit in India has been explored in terms of hot spots (with high deficits) and cold spots (with more female favourable child sex ratios). It has been argued using Census of India data from individual censuses that there is a contagion effect for both hot spots and cold spots. To understand such effect it is important to visualize the data spatially. This paper takes this discussion forward by asking whether such effect can be seen across censuses. To do so it develops the concept of an epicentre to see whether a hot or cold spot in one census is spreading shock waves across a wider region in later censuses. The longitudinal analysis of child sex ratios over three censuses – 1991, 2001 and 2011 – shows that the hot spots are epicentres of the spread of female child deficits while the cold spots display a reverse effect. This work has used ArcGIS for Geospatial analysis Census of India data.
Thesis Chapters by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil
The study is a step towards linking the larger processes of globalisation with that of the local ... more The study is a step towards linking the larger processes of globalisation with that of the local dimensions. The secondary circuit both formal and informal identified in the study helps understand the practical significance of internal migration, as well as the informal sector workers contribution to the global production circuits.
The effects of global industrial circuits can vary from industry to industry and location to loca... more The effects of global industrial circuits can vary from industry to industry and location to location. While focusing on labour in a global circuit, an attempt must be made to look beyond the workplace to understand the secondary consequences of globalisation within the nation. Such circuits involve various actors and connect multiple local regions to the global resource points within the nation. This will be elaborated with the case study of garment workers trained in Odisha under the Skill Development Mission, India and recruited to the Apparel Parks in Kerala.
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Papers by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil
Conference Presentations by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil
Thesis Chapters by Dr. Asha Kuzhiparambil