EXPLORING NARRATIVES OF WORK AND FAMILY: INDO-TRINIDADIAN WOMEN IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

• Published in: International journal of sociology of the family Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 49 - 70
• Main Author: GRAHAME, KAMINI MARAJ
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serials Publications 01-04-2014
• Subjects: Capitalism; Children; Decolonization; Elementary schools; Ethnography; Females; Globalization; High schools; Hindus; Men; Modernization; Mothers; Parents; Social Conditions; Trinidad and Tobago; Womens education; World Economy
• ISSN: 0020-7667; 0973-2039; 0020-7667

This paper focuses on changes in Indo-Trinidadian women's lives across three generations. Using the theoretical lens of women's standpoint (Smith 1987, 2005), it explores the extended social relations of ruling shaping those experiences. It draws on intensive ethnographic field work among East Indians in Trinidad. A single, three generational family is selected as the central illustrative case to highlight broader processes that are operative in these women's lives. The analysis suggests that their lives must be understood in the context of modernization and globalization processes in conjunction with Indians' agency in finding their place within the society in the post-colonial period. I argue that these women's lives reveal the often ambiguous and contradictory outcomes of such processes, and that women are not simply passive recipients of extended forms of ruling but also active agents in carving out a niche for themselves as material and social conditions shift.