<i>Of Labour and Love</i> : A Film-Based Analysis of the Dispositif of Debt Bondage

This study explores how debt relations entrap workers through complex power dynamics involving employers, intermediaries, and local lenders. Using a Foucauldian framework, we introduce the concept of the dispositif of debt bondage to analyse how debt produces bonded subjects while maintaining control via everyday life practices. Central to our study is a 14-minute documentary – Of Labour and Love , which depicts lived experiences of debt-bonded kiln workers. Our analysis demonstrates that debt bondage is not merely an isolated exploitative labour arrangement but a structural feature of labour relations, particularly in Indian brick kilns, deeply embedded in relations of exchange, power and meaning. The paper contributes by extending the understanding of debt bondage as a set of relations that shape and control behaviours, making work on self essential for the reproduction of indebtedness and subsequently producing debt-bonded labour.