Child Labor and the Urban Third World

Subrata Sankar Bagchi is a reader for the Department of Anthropology in Bangabasi Evening College. His research interests include child labor, urban marginalization, research methodology, and human rights in the Third World. Bagchi is the author of Expanding Horizons of Human Rights and Living on the Margin. He was recently a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Ottawa.

• Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 Chapter 1: IntroductionChapter 3 Chapter 2: Concepts of Child Labor: A Critical ReviewChapter 4 Chapter 3: Toward a New Understanding of Child Labor in the Urban Third WorldChapter 5 Chapter 4: TablesChapter 6 Chapter 5: Need for a Paradigm ShiftChapter 7 BibliographyChapter 8 Appendix IChapter 9 Appendix IIChapter 10 Index

The global neo-liberal economy has marginalized vulnerable people in the South, while at the same time states often fail to provide adequate protection. One of the most vulnerable categories consists of children in mega-cities. Subrata Sankar Bagchi has studied children and child labour in Kolkata. Basing himself on extensive fieldwork over a long period, combined with quantitative as well as qualitative data, Subrata Sankar Bagchi provides an unusually sharp inside [look] into the lives of children in Kolkata. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in child labour in Indian mega-cities.