Nachtarbeit in India and the EU: New Ground for Economic Cooperation, Welfare and Resilience
摘要
India, like much of the ‘Global South’, has been incorporated into the circadian rhythms of transnational production and circulation, especially since the liberalisation of the Indian economy, the worldwide boom of service and gig sector and the imperatives to outsource tasks across borders. European cities have increasingly grappled with the regulation and organisation of nightlife, to securitise and facilitate nocturnal mobility and productional logistics, often considered as a sign of a society’s integration into global production circuits. In India, this phenomenon is more prominent due to the correspondent demands of digital services in Western markets and the difference in time zones, leading to a proliferation of ‘call centers’ and other similar spaces working throughout the night to uphold Global Value Chains (GVC), Global Commodity Chains (GCC) and Global Production Networks (GPNs). This chapter engages in case studies on Berlin and Kolkata, to look at nachtarbeit, primarily through interviews of call center employees and delivery personnel and critically enquire into the challenges of the night-time economy and issues of mobility, safety and security. Additionally, since immigrants from countries like India comprise a large section of the informal, nocturnal pool of labour in European cities, this is also an argument to make these work and public spaces more inclusive and responsive to identity-based anxieties and conflicts. To conclude, it looks at legislation and policies that tend to these issues and suggests further grounds for intervention, in turn creating more resilient urban workspaces and developing grounds of cooperation between regional and global economies.