Fleeting Agencies: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya

by Arunima Datta

Fleeting Agencies disrupts the male-dominated narratives by focusing on gendered patterns of migration and showing how South Asian women labour migrants engaged with the process of migration, interacted with other migrants and negotiated colonial laws. This is the first study of Indian coolie women in British Malaya to date. In exploring the politicization of labour migration trends and gender relations in the colonial plantation society in British Malaya, the author foregrounds how the migrant Indian 'coolie' women manipulated colonial legal and administrative perceptions of Indian women; their gender-prescriptive roles, relations within patriarchal marriage institutions, and even the emerging Indian national independence movement in India and Malaya. All this, to ensure their survival, escape from unfavourable relations and situations, and improve their lives. The book also introduces the concept of situational or fleeting agency, which contributes to further a nuanced understanding of agency in the lives of Indian coolie women.

Genres: History

254 pages, Hardcover

Published November 25, 2021

Reviews

[TK Rama · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am interested in the history of indentured labor due to my own family connections with Guyana. So was excited to read this book on coolie women in Malaysia. The book, however, failed my expectations. It neither has the flow of a popular history book (which I wasn't expecting), nor does it have the rigor and insight of the more serious academic works on indenture.

[Jakob Peters · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly disappointed and frustrated over the time I will not get back after wasting it on this "book". I should have seen the previous reviews here and saved my energies. The author has no original arguments and instead wastes time with needless jargon and multiple "reintroductions" of scholarship that already exists in the field. Overpriced and no substantive quality to show for it.

[Aditya Singh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete waste of money. There is little actual scholarship. Instead it was more a regurgitation of known facts mixed with useless jargon.

[Samantha Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this award reading book. This is pathbreaking work in Asian history and labor history. A must-read.

[Samantha Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous award winning book. A must read for academics interested in labor migration history

[Jakob Peters · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly problematic book with limited insight or original content.