ABSTRACT
A technology is a tool that helps you do things. This essay proposes the concept of a ‘technology of transformation’ to analyse the social and political tools with which people seek to effect change upon the world. Based on ethnographic field research conducted in industrial Indian contexts, the essay considers how transformative efficacy is at the core of most major questions about labour: from value and work satisfaction, to engagements with political struggle and collective action. By reconceptualising labour in terms of struggles over transformation, the essay provides a discrete analytic model with which to reconcile debates about value, agency, and political subjectivity.
