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In Fleeting Agencies, the author revises and decolonizes the history of transnational female plantation labour and acknowledges the agency of women workers. This is the first book to examine the history of Indian coolie women who migrated to British Malaya and contributed to the making of the Rubber Empire.
List of contents
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.
About the author
Arunima Datta is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, University of North Texas. She is the author of the multiple award-winning book Fleeting Agencies: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (2021), which received the Sara A. Whaley Award from the National Women's Studies Association, the Gita Chaudhuri Award from the Western Association of Women Historians and the Stansky Award from the North American Conference of British Studies. Her earlier work on the history of travelling ayahs in Britain has also won the Carol Gold Award. Her recent book, Waiting on Empire: History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain (2023) was recently published by Oxford University Press. She serves as an associate editor of Gender & History, Britain and the World, and as the Associate Review Editor of the American Historical Review. Her works have appeared in several scholarly journals, public history journals and magazines, and on BBC4.
