Unfree labour has been central to the Indian tea industry’s ‘business model’ since its establishment under British colonial rule. Dr Karin Astrid Siegmann and Dr Sreerekha Sathi investigate forms of unfree labour in south Indian tea plantations.
Their analysis brings to the fore how economic and social coercions that work on tea workers’ desire to guarantee their household’s daily and generational reproduction enable companies to control workers’ time, that way facilitating profit making in the global tea industry.
Gender ideologies and hierarchies normalize these coercions for women workers. They translate into gendered obstacles to exit plantation employment and lead to long working hours for low pay. At the same time, we show that the desire of women and men to secure their families’ present and future livelihood also triggers and fuels unfree workers’ resistance.
Read the full article online - 'Unfreedoms in south India's tea value chain: reproduction and resistance', Globalizations.
- Associate professor
- Assistant professor