ACTIVISM AND AGENCY IN INDIA: NURTURING RESISTANCE IN THE TEA PLANTATIONS

During the period 2000 to 2010, tea plantations in India experienced a crisis and were at the threshold of transformation, framed by conflict and turbulence. This book is an interdisciplinary and intersection work examining the nature of victimhood and agency among women workers on tea plantations in North Bengal, India. The author views tea plantations as social spaces, rather than only economic units of production. Focusing on the lived experiences of the workers from the perspective of their multiple identities, the author uses the everyday as the entry point for understanding the exercise of agency, the negotiation of different spaces, gender roles and norms therein, As well as acts of protest. Agency and its relation to space are seen as continuums: from their everyday, hidden forms to the more overt and spectacular; from conformity and endurance to challenge and protest.