Female Labour in Tea Plantations: Labour Process and Labour Control

Abstract

This chapter draws on a study conducted in the tea plantations of Upper Assam. It analyses gender relations in the labour market and the role of women labourers in sustaining the structure of the tea plantation economy of Assam. It also explores the question of women’s location within the existing system of production and traces how their position has changed following changes in the relations of production and labour processes. Based on in-depth interviews, this study analyses women’s status in a capitalist production process deeply embedded in patriarchal and cultural norms that invisibilise women’s roles in economic processes.