Fleeting Agencies
A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya

Critically examines the agency and history of long-silenced coolie women and their role in colonial economy and transnational movements.

Arunima Datta (Author)

9781009415491, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 August 2023

240 pages
27 x 18 x 1.6 cm, 0.41 kg

'… This book is a strong intervention in a field of research that has received little attention, and importantly, no investment, for decades. That field is women's social history in Malaya and Malaysia … Datta has broken new ground by centring the stories of workers who were doubly marginalised, on racial as well as gender grounds.' Amrita Malhi, History Australia

Fleeting Agencies disrupts the male-dominated narratives by focusing on gendered patterns of migration and showing how South Asian women labour migrants engaged with the process of migration, interacted with other migrants and negotiated colonial laws. This is the first study of Indian coolie women in British Malaya to date. In exploring the politicization of labour migration trends and gender relations in the colonial plantation society in British Malaya, the author foregrounds how the migrant Indian 'coolie' women manipulated colonial legal and administrative perceptions of Indian women; their gender-prescriptive roles, relations within patriarchal marriage institutions, and even the emerging Indian national independence movement in India and Malaya. All this, to ensure their survival, escape from unfavourable relations and situations, and improve their lives. The book also introduces the concept of situational or fleeting agency, which contributes to further a nuanced understanding of agency in the lives of Indian coolie women.

Acknowledgements
List of Tables
List of Figures and Diagrams
Introduction
1. Coolie Women in the Empire's Rubber Garden: Historical and Contextual Background
2. 'Tapping' Resources: (Re) Figuring the Labour of Coolie Women on Estates
3. Managing 'Partnerships': Domesticity and Entrepreneurial Endeavours
4. Negotiating Intimacies and Moralities: Enticements, Desertions, Violence and Gendered Trials
5. Becoming 'Ranis': Coolie Women as Rani Jhansi Regiment Recruits in WWII
Conclusion
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes and References
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology: work & labour [JHBL], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Asian history [HBJF], General & world history [HBG]