The play of ‘dirty politics’: ordinary ethics and the evidence of experience on the workfloor in New Delhi, India

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the tensed sociality amongst precariously employed service economy workers in the retail outlets of a prominent eyewear company in New Delhi, India. The bickering staff label the ongoing interpersonal strife ‘dirty politics’. Linked to this are their confident assertions that, in fact, all politics is dirty, and dirty politics is the only type of politics possible – rejecting formal party politics and labour unions as morally vacuous and motivated by utilitarian individualism. Engaging with the anthropology of ordinary ethics, the article demonstrates how the affectively charged experience and talk of petty politicking on the neoliberal workfloor provides critical ‘evidence’ that ‘confirms’ such a politico‐ethical view.