Methods
Content
Documentary analysis
Gather state circulars, Ministry of Health bulletins, official state declarations from the time of the lockdowns (India) or curfew (Sri Lanka), planning documents by various local bodies, official union statements and subject them to thematic analysis to address the research questions above. We will then be able to draw on the similarities and distinctions, and through process-tracing analysis chart the development of policy responses over time.
Archival reports
By working together with local organizations and researchers, we will start by accessing localized reports published and formal labour unions and localized labour rights organizations existing situation reports.
Qualitative interviews, in the form of
- Testimonies: Working together with local researchers and local organizations to gather oral or written testimonies of workers in each site (Kerala, Delhi in India and Colombo and Jaffna in Sri Lanka) to ascertain how responses to CoVID-19 are shaped by class, caste, gender, religion, and mobility. These testimonies are likely to provide evidence, for example, on how people and communities cope and how such coping strategies are gendered, thus speaking to how crises are internalized, socialized and shaped by existing social and economic relations, labour regimes and social protection mechanisms.
- We may supplement or substitute these data with organizational testimonies in the event CoVID-19 pandemic continues to be acute or has re-emerged late 2021 which have been gathered by local labour organizations and relevant state bodies to analyse the available unpublished testimonials, short autobiographies and similarly.
We will then use our different evidence to compare against any published reports that document quantitative data, such as surveys reports from local offices of the WHO (World Health Organization) and ILO (International Labour Office). The data gathered through these mixed methods will enable our research to understand responses of the state in relation to labour, their representatives, and the variety of institutional interventions. We will thus be able to develop more nuanced analysis using mixed methods to scrutinise ongoing transformations around the state, the relevant responses by labour organizations and its bearing upon social protection mechanisms due to the pandemic.