Product, equipment, uniform: Material environment and the consumption of work in New Delhi, India

Abstract The article focuses on how low and lower-middle class youth employed in new private sector jobs the booming service economy Indian cities engage with material environment of their workplace, how, through ‘aesthetic scrutiny’ its materiality, come to ‘consume’ work. setting is store floor a fast-expanding organized retail company, called Spexy, that sells budget eyewear products. Through ethnographic elaboration, follows Spexy staff deride ‘un-branded’ products, ‘un-technical’ equipment, ‘un-professional’ uniforms at workplace. as constituted these ‘poor’ materials, mocked for failing ‘company-ness’ branded ‘fake’. workplace provides platform articulation larger configurations ‘feelings’ seek give get formal employment company. These articulations, turn, reveal sociocultural valuations regarding ideas social mobility visibility contemporary India where there strong interest brand regimes value hierarchies, fixation technological education expertise, attraction towards corporate work culture sector, and, concomitantly, desire amongst craft branded, technical, professional identities. By putting scholarship consumption dialogue, demonstrates bottom-rung urban workers look expectantly company fulfil desires.