Differentiation of femininities in contemporary Kerala: evidence from left-behind families of women transmigrant workers

ABSTRACT

This article explores a largely understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration: how localised frameworks of feminine ideals and subjectivities interact with women’s migration. It is based on a mixed-methods field research conducted in 2016 in a village in Central Kerala with a long history of women’s labour migration.  Analyses revealed the emergence of five local categories of feminine subjectivities: the dutiful daughters, young educated and typically unmarried women who are considered as  assets rather than burdens by their families; the responsible mothers, who  are responsible for the social reproduction of dutiful daughters; the flying grandmas, commonly older mothers who engage in temporary migration to support the transmigrant women with their domestic responsibilities; the defiant wives, mostly married women whose autonomous migration is perceived as a transgression of the conjugal family ideals even though these families survive on their earnings; and the substitute women, typically older women who take over the role of caregivers when married women migrate leaving behind their husbands and children.  The paper concludes by demonstrating how globalising processes like women’s international labour migration interact with localised gender, caste and class structures to produce new and unequal categories of femininities.

KEYWORDS:

• Femininities
• female transmigration
• Kerala
• aspirations
• subjectivities

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Narendar Pani for his insights which were immensely helpful in shaping this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This paper emerged from the data collected as a part of the author's doctoral dissertation which was funded by the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

Notes on contributors

Anamika Ajay

Anamika Ajay recently completed her doctoral dissertation from the School of Social Sciences at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India. She is currently an independent researcher. Her current research interests lie in understanding the impact of international labour migration workers on wider identity projects in Kerala.