Men, women, and domestics : articulating middle-class identity in colonial Bengal

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Bibliographic Information

Men, women, and domestics : articulating middle-class identity in colonial Bengal

Swapna M. Banerjee

Oxford University Press, 2004

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p.[212]-235) and indexes

"This book grew out of the dissertation research at Temple University, Philsdelphia"-- Acknowlwdgements

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this ground breaking study, Swapna M. Banerjee examines the construction of national identity in colonial Bengal, through the lens of employer-servant relationships. Drawing on a wide range of literary and official sources, Banerjee reveals that domestic politics played a central role in the articulation of caste-class divides. Making new claims for the political influence of women and domestic workers, this is a scholarly and innovative study of a previously neglected chapter in Indian social history.

Table of Contents

  • INTRODUCTION: THE BHADRALOK, BHADRAMILA, AND DOMESTIC WORKERS IN COLONIAL BENGAL
  • 1. A Genealogy of Servants: Dominance and Subordination in Households of Early Calcutta - Eighteenth through Twentieth Centuries
  • 2. Reconstituting the Household: Defining Middle-Class Domesticity in Colonial Bengal -The Mistress and the Servant
  • 3. Remembering and Writing the Subaltern: Bengali Middle Class Recalls and Represents Domestic Workers
  • 4. Subverting the Moral Universe: Transgression as a Theme in Representing Domestic Workers
  • CONCLUSION

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