Women and Labour in Late Colonial India
The Bengal Jute Industry
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:14th Dec '06
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The history of labouring women in late colonial Calcutta demonstrates how social constructions of gender shaped their lives.
In a history of labouring women in Calcutta, the author demonstrates how social constructions of gender shaped their lives and how the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued their labour. The study makes a significant contribution to the social and economic history of colonial India.Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. Dr Sen demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The book provides insight into the lives of poor urban women who were often perceived as prostitutes or social pariahs. Even trade unions refused to address their problems and they remained on the margins of organized political protest. The study will make a signficant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction.
'… Indian economic history has normally used a narrowly western model of manufacture which describes the principal conflict as between capital and labour. Sen makes a real contribution in describing a further, and specifically Indian, level of complexity.' The Times Literary Supplement
'… this book is a valuable addition to the history of women in colonised societies. It should be of interest to scholars of different disciplines who are interested in the historical and contemporary nexus between work and stratification.' The Times Higher Education Supplement
ISBN: 9780521035064
Dimensions: 228mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: 452g
288 pages