Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
Mythri Prasad-Aleyamma
(Associate Fellow, Institute of Human Development, New Delhi)
Will be presenting a paper on
Migration, Surveillance and Identification Regimes
Date & Time: September 21, 2017 (Thursday), 3.00 pm
Venue: CSSS Committee Room (Room No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract: The paper will focus on ID based surveillance practices targeted at migrant workers in Kerala that occurs through a complex social web of state repression, local power structures and fissures within the classes of workers. It will address the qualitative aspects of the quantitative relation between the state and people and the state and space. This has implications for the ongoing debate on Aadhaar because it alerts us to the complicated relationship between workers and identification regimes and the inability of classed ideas of privacy to engage with questions of surveillance that majority of citizens’ experience on a daily basis.
Bio: Mythri Prasad-Aleyamma is associate fellow at Institute for Human Development, Delhi. Her research interests primarily revolve around migration and urban transformation in contemporary India. Her doctoral work traces the different types of recruitment of migrants and local Malayali workers that reflect political contests and settlements between trade unions, corporate construction companies and recruitment agencies. She has worked as a researcher at the French Institute of Pondicherry in the SUBURBIN project that examined subaltern urbanisation in India. Among her recent publications are two book chapters: “A Market Place for Migrants: Mobility, Settlement and Social Protection in Kerala” (Palgrave Macmillan); “Territorial Legends: Politics of Indigeneity, Migration, and Urban Citizenship in Pasighat” (Springer) and articles in Contributions to Indian Sociology and Economic and Political Weekly.