Women in the Indian informal economy: Collective strategies for work life improvement and development

Strategies for work life reform amongst informal sector workers in developi ng countries are currently dominated by resource -based approaches such as the micro-credit movement. This policy framework is predicated upon certain liberal assumptions about individual human action and the relationship bet ween human behaviour and economic development. This article contends that t hese assumptions are inappropriate when applied to informal sector workers and their economic activities. A focus on the intersubjective conditions of work and economic development, based on the work of Axel Honneth (1995), p rovides an alternative way of conceptualising the work life experience of m arginalised workers and appropriate interventions for economic and social s ecurity. An example of a collective strategy implemented by the Self Employ ed Womens' Association (SEWA) in India, demonstrates the important role tha t interpersonal recognition plays in activating worker identity and agency to achieve development. The success of SEWAs methodology has implications f or how we think about the meaning of development and work life reform in po or countries, suggesting that interventions for economic and social securit y must engage workers at both the economic and cultural levels at which ins ecurity, moral injury and social exclusion are produced.