The article explores how retail workers envision and pursue aspirations for social mobility through employment in Delhi malls. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation, this study examines how retail store employees cultivate professional occupational identities as a way of distancing themselves from informal and manual workers and claim a new class identity. The article also shows how workers come to view the job as dhoka (deceit), once they experience humiliation and disrespect at the hands of customers and managers and realise that such employment does not allow them to transcend their social class positions. However, they continue to stay on in these demeaning jobs because they believe that employment in the new service economy is their best option. By exploring retail workers’ narratives of majboori (constraint or compulsion) in this context, the article unpacks their contradictory experiences of work in the service sector and sheds light on youth aspirations and mobility strategies in post-liberalised India.

这篇文章探讨了零售工人如何通过在德里购物中心的就业来设想和追求社会流动性。基于 14 个月的人种学实地调查和参与观察，本研究调查了零售店员工如何培养专业职业身份，以此作为与非正规工人和体力劳动者保持距离并声称拥有新的阶级身份的一种方式。文章还展示了工人如何将这份工作视为 dhoka（欺骗），一旦他们经历了客户和经理的羞辱和不尊重，并意识到这种工作不允许他们超越他们的社会阶级地位。然而，他们继续从事这些有辱人格的工作，因为他们相信在新的服务经济中就业是他们最好的选择。