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Social Reproduction and the Agrarian Question of Women’s Labour in India

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  • Sirisha C. Naidu
  • Lyn Ossome

Abstract

Using a social reproduction framework, this article explores how reproduction of rural working class households is rearticulated to capitalist production in India. Our analysis of the conditions in India reveals that the interaction of three institutions—market, state and household—has imposed the burden of reproduction on women. In turn, women’s work is dependent on private and common lands. This link, between the role of women’s unpaid labour in reproducing rural households and the fact that this work remains largely dependent on land, constitutes a failure of the Indian economy to provide decent livelihoods. It also reasserts gender equity as a contemporary and unresolved question in the midst of India’s agrarian transition and underscores the importance of instituting agrarian reforms and state intervention at levels sufficient for social reproduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Sirisha C. Naidu & Lyn Ossome, 2016. "Social Reproduction and the Agrarian Question of Women’s Labour in India," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 5(1), pages 50-76, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:agspub:v:5:y:2016:i:1:p:50-76
    DOI: 10.1177/2277976016658737
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sirisha C. Naidu, 2023. "Circuits of Social Reproduction: Nature, Labor, and Capitalism," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 93-111, March.
    2. Paris Yeros & Praveen Jha, 2020. "Late Neo-colonialism: Monopoly Capitalism in Permanent Crisis1," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 9(1), pages 78-93, April.
    3. Elena Baglioni, 2022. "The Making of Cheap Labour across Production and Reproduction: Control and Resistance in the Senegalese Horticultural Value Chain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 445-464, June.
    4. Archana Prasad, 2021. "Women’s Liberation and the Agrarian Question: Insights from Peasant Movements in India," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(1), pages 15-40, April.
    5. Walter Chambati, 2017. "Changing Forms of Wage Labour in Zimbabwe’s New Agrarian Structure," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 6(1), pages 79-112, April.
    6. Lyn Ossome, 2021. "Pedagogies of Feminist Resistance: Agrarian Movements in Africa," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(1), pages 41-58, April.
    7. Clara Bellamy, 2021. "Insurgency, Land Rights and Feminism: Zapatista Women Building Themselves as Political Subjects," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(1), pages 86-109, April.
    8. Freedom Mazwi & Rangarirai G. Muchetu & George T. Mudimu, 2021. "Revisiting the Trimodal Agrarian Structure as a Social Differentiation Analysis Framework in Zimbabwe: A Study," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(2), pages 318-343, August.
    9. Lyn Ossome & Sirisha C. Naidu, 2021. "Does Land Still Matter? Gender and Land Reforms in Zimbabwe," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 10(2), pages 344-370, August.

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