Intersectionality and Spaces of Belonging : Understanding the Tea Plantation Workers in Dooars

Abstract

The tea plantation being a bounded space, there is a tendency to view the women workers within it as a homogenous category of marginal workers vis-à-vis the managerial class. Though historically constructed this class identity, however, is neither absolute nor concrete. The workers are both men and women of different cultural, tribal, ethnic or caste origin. Like any other social space the tea gardens form a context for a maze of relationships where different aspects of their identity—religious, ethnic, caste etc. coincide, collide and coexist. Using data from extensive fieldwork conducted in two gardens of Dooars, India, the paper explores the perceptions of the women workers regarding identity and belonging in that space. The women form work-groups and it is through their formation and functioning the paper seeks to understand how relations of dominance and subordination are not random but can be traced to specific discourses around class, gender, ethnic, race and kinship relations.