Negotiating Social Security through Network Building: A Study of the Livelihoods of Resident Caretakers in the new Metropolis of Kolkata

Abstract

The “resident caretakers”, who constitute a distinct category of indentured labor in the newly emerging urban metropolises of India, have remained a relatively neglected component of research in the field of sociology of labor relations, and therefore they rightfully deserve meticulous attention from the scholars. The present study explores the patterns of migration and resettlement of this category of urban labour force in one of the major suburban cities of Kolkata as an attempt to uncover the process of their absorption into the urban informal sector. The growing number of these indentured laborers in the urban informal sector in India has remained marginalized and denied most of their rights that are given to the formal sector workers. The present paper thus intends to examine this issue as a redresser to the problem of social security among these urban contractual laborers that is multiplying every day in the major cities of West Bengal with the development of the new towns, confiscating boundaries of the upper middle class. The study uses ethnographic case accounts drawn from qualitative face-to-face interviews that draw attention to their livelihood patterns and the vignettes of their network building processes through the derivative component of social capital that is constantly been generated in specific interactional contexts. This in the long run builds together in maintaining a constant sense of identity, personal wellbeing and social recognition of their form of labor in a relatively “negotiated” social space.