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Domestic Days: Women, Work, and Politics in Contemporary Kolkata

Author

Listed:
  • Sen, Samita

    (Jadavpur University, Kolkata)

  • Sengupta, Nilanjana

    (Jadavpur University, Kolkata)

Abstract

'Maids' have become an inseparable part of the daily lives of 'middle-class' urban households in India. Despite the fact that increasing numbers of poor women are joining this profession, very little has been written about them, especially the part-time domestic workers, each of whom services a number of households at a time. They are not accorded their rightful status as workers either by the employers, their own families, the Government or traditional trade unions. Isolated in the privacy of employers' homes, the problem of recognizing their work or organizing them is the same as for women isolated in their own homes. Another important reason is that most such women are rendered voiceless by their social location: unlettered; staying in 'illegal' settlements; migrants; working to survive; performing 'feminine' work both paid and unpaid, and both devalued. This book is therefore about making the unheard heard. It draws from personal narratives of part time women domestic workers residing in two slum-settlements of Kolkata, who speak about their work, lives, dreams and despair. By moving between the workplace and the homes of the workers, this book makes a departure from general accounts of labour and talks instead about labouring lives. Available in OSO:

Suggested Citation

  • Sen, Samita & Sengupta, Nilanjana, 2016. "Domestic Days: Women, Work, and Politics in Contemporary Kolkata," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199461165.
  • Handle: RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780199461165
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    Cited by:

    1. Deepita Chakravarty, 2018. "Lack of Economic Opportunities and Persistence of Child Marriage in West Bengal," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 25(2), pages 180-204, June.
    2. Amrita Ghatak & Kingshuk Sarkar, 2022. "Status of Domestic Workers in India: A Tale of Two Cities," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 65(3), pages 863-879, September.
    3. Supurna Banerjee & Lauren Wilks, 2024. "Work in pandemic times: Exploring precarious continuities in paid domestic work in India," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1505-1523, July.
    4. Supurna Banerjee, 2018. "From ‘Plantation Workers’ to NaukrÄ nÄ«," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 164-185, August.
    5. Shalini Grover & Thomas Chambers & Patricia Jeffery, 2018. "Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 123-140, August.

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