Social Reproduction of Dalit sanitation workers families in Mumbai

What is the nature of the work lives, social worlds, and self-understandings of Dalit sanitation workers in Mumbai? How do these women negotiate the oppressive structures of caste, class and gender in their everyday lives? This article seeks to answer these questions by studying the lives and testimonies of women sanitation workers, who are employed for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the Mumbai Central neighbourhood. I have investigated the experiences at work and home through an ethnographic study of two dimensions of their lives: i) caste-based work and its functioning, which deals with negotiations women workers have as well as strategies they use for survival; and ii) life in the neighbourhood and the family, dealing with these kin systems by moving beyond the tasks assigned at home. This article examines the work of women sanitation workers doing productive work in the wage economy as well as the reproductive work in the domestic sphere which is highly undervalued and invisible. Through Social Reproduction Theory, this research analyses the triple oppressions of caste, class and gender. The endogamous marriage practices and social networks among sanitation workers families, which tend to be connected to the intergenerational nature of work and house is analysed. The paper explores the complexities of intra household power relations, and the relationship between workers and kin systems. This research paper illustrates the linkages and interconnections between the home and the workplace, and the social processes forming the world views of women workers in western India.