Operationalising Labour Process in context of SEZs in India

Varsha Maheshwari

Labour process, Special economic zones, Development and labour

In order to understand the meaning of work with changed management strategies in SEZs in context of labour as per Marxian framework, we espoused labour process debates. In case of India, there are an impressive array of scholars who have analysed SEZs with respect to labour. On the contrary, there are a few studies on SEZs focusing on the 'labour process', which was a concept pioneered by Karl Marx and later re-established by various other scholars after a century in today's context. In this study we endeavour to present labour process in neoliberal regime in context of SEZs and additionally we have dealt with conceptual framework and have operationalized the concepts of labour process in the SEZ. This study gives a brief background on the changing meaning of work, which clearly shows as to how progression in society and meaning of work has travelled simultaneously (where technology and management strategies plays an important role). Furthermore, it dwells on the Marxian framework of Labour Process Theory (LPT) followed by Braverman where we have given a brief account of LPT after Marx and how Braverman resurrected Labour Process theory after 100 years. Later we elaborated LPT beyond Braverman and the upcoming new paradigm. There is plethora of literature on LPT that have evolved after Marx. We are not delving into reviewing the entire body of literature rather we have analysed some relevant issues in this area to develop our conceptual understanding of Labour Process for this study. In the last section, we have attempted to operationalise the conceptual framework of LPT for our study and explained as to how a researcher can operationalize such concepts on the field.

Volume 14 Issue 1, January-2026

Pages : e915-e924