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Bonded Labour in Pakistan
Part of the Oxford in Pakistan Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology series Bonded labour in Pakistan brings together, for the first time, a collection of essays addressing bonded labour across different agricultural and industrial sectors in Pakistan. With contributions from prominent experts on labour issues and human rights activism, field researchers and ethnographers, and a leading legal scholar, the collection is a multi-disciplinary engagement with bonded labour in Pakistan as it has evolved over the last two decades.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published December 27, 2016
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February 14, 2018
An extremely informative collection of essays exploring the practice of bonded labour in sectors including brick kilns, fishing communities, mining, agriculture, and domestic labour. The authors explore the various power dynamics involved in terms of economic and violent coercion; the role of middlemen and decentralisation in distancing industrial owners from their labour forces in order to avoid legal obligations; and the structural inevitability of indebtedness and substantive bondage in industries where subsistence-level wages do not, in practice, meet even that most basic level.
There is some repetitiveness among the essays; I would have liked to have seen the anthology a little more tightly edited and curated. Although this book was published in 2016, several of the essays are from 2004-2009 and much of the data relied on dates circa 1999-2001, but PKR values are not quoted uniformly in 2016-adjusted values. Clarity and comparability suffer as a result. The anthology also lacks any discussion of how to address bonded labour in Pakistan.
That said, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in social justice, livelihoods, and labour relations in Pakistan.
There is some repetitiveness among the essays; I would have liked to have seen the anthology a little more tightly edited and curated. Although this book was published in 2016, several of the essays are from 2004-2009 and much of the data relied on dates circa 1999-2001, but PKR values are not quoted uniformly in 2016-adjusted values. Clarity and comparability suffer as a result. The anthology also lacks any discussion of how to address bonded labour in Pakistan.
That said, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in social justice, livelihoods, and labour relations in Pakistan.
Displaying 1 of 1 review