Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a narrative of people working with women workers in two tea plantations in Dooars in North Bengal, India – Kaalka and Daahlia. It illustrates that their struggle for survival is neither simple nor uni-directional; rather it is a complex, often contradictory and multi-layered process. Framed by the recognition that gender identity is complex and fragmented by multiple other identities; the book maps out the gendered nature of the space and labour in the tea plantations. The book draws on the intervention in a post-crisis period in mapping the workers' narratives about their lived experiences and struggles in the times of economic, political and social tumult in the tea plantations of West Bengal. Tea plantation literature, in viewing structural hierarchies, has tended to prioritise single dimensions of power relations.