Migrants and the City: Industry, Labour, and Migration

Seminar Hall, Centre for Social Studies, Surat

Friday, 16th of June 2023 at 2.30 pm (Hybrid Mode)

 

A city cannot be conceived without her migrants. However, the migrant population often remain ignored or at the margins of any discussion on the city. This migrant population, in the form of workers, is the foundational building block of the industrial city of Surat. By an estimate, Surat is one of the most favourite destination for internal migrants in India. This also holds true for the migrants coming from various regions within the state. Therefore, the city has an extremely diverse composition of migrant population and consist of people from Saurashtra, neighbouring tribal districts of south Gujarat to communities coming from Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan to name a merely few. This migrant workforce is the backbone of each and every industries of Surat: from diamond polishing to powerloom, from dyeing and printing to real estate. However, rarely we find a forum discussing, in dedicated manner, the working and living conditions of migrant workers in Surat. To address this apathy and to engage with the challenges, difficulties faced by migrant workers as well as their experiences and worldviews, Centre for Social Studies invites you to its fourth City-Centre dialogue, migrants and the city.

 About the City-Centre Dialogue Series

 Since its inception, the Centre for Social Studies (CSS) has focused on understanding various facets of Surat City. These include urban settlements, its society, history, culture, calamities and resilience. CSS has completed more than 38 studies on various aspects of the city. To disseminate our study findings and to establish a dialogue with scholars, eminent citizens, resource persons, and government officers of Surat, CSS is organising Centre-City dialogue series. Thematically the series has focussed on Historical and Cultural Transformation of Surat; Municipal Waste Management Practice; Smart City: Challenges and Opportunities; Industry, Labour, and Migration; Public Health and Environment; and Urban futures: Sustainable living.

This event will be in hybrid mode. For joining online click: https://meet.google.com/ext-vsuz-wko   

 Financially supported by Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the fourth dialogue in this series will be on Migrants and the City: Industry, Labour, and Migration on Friday, 16th of June, 2023 at 2.30 pm onwards at the Seminar Hall, Centre for Social Studies, Surat. 

 Guest speakers for the dialogue:

 1.      Rameshbhai Gelariya, Diamond Workers Union, Gujarat

2.      Sanjaybhai Patel, Aajeevika Bureau, Surat

3.      Sandeepan Tripathy, Doctoral researcher, National University of Singapore and Visiting Scholar, Centre for Social Studies, Surat.

 You are cordially invited to attend.

 Sadan Jha, Associate Professor, CSS, Surat (Moderator and Convenor).