Cultures of servitude : modernity, domesticity, and class in India / Raka Ray, Seemin Qayum.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ray, Raka.

Contributor:

Qayum, Seemin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Household employees--India--History.

Household employees.

Master and servant--India--History.

Master and servant.

Social classes--India--History.

Social classes.

History.

India--Social conditions.

India.

Social conditions.

Physical Description:

xiv, 255 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, [2009]

Summary:

Domestic servitude blurs the divide between family and work, affection and duty, the home and the world. In Cultures of Servitude, Raka Ray and Seemin Qayum offer an ethnographic account of domestic life and servitude in contemporary Kolkata, India, with a concluding comparison with New York City. Focused on employers as well as servants, men as well as women, across multiple generations, they examine the practices and meaning of servitude around the home and in the public sphere.

This book shifts the conversation surrounding domestic service away from an emphasis on the crisis of transnational care work to one about the constitution of class. It reveals how employers position themselves as middle and upper classes through evolving methods of servant and home management, even as servants grapple with the challenges of class and cultural distinction embedded in relations of domination and inequality.

Contents:

Approaching servitude in Kolkata

Colonial legacies and spatial transformations

Between family retainer and freelancer

Disquieting transitions

The failure of patriarchy

The cultivation and cleavage of distinction

Traveling cultures of servitude

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-248) and index.

ISBN:

9780804760713

0804760713

9780804760720

0804760721

OCLC:

270230958