ABSTRACT
The plantations are unique social spaces where multiple intersecting systems of social stratification exist with gendered division at their core as an organising principle. This chapter examines how the micro-sites within the plantation shape and is shaped by gender discourses and how these naturalise certain social norms. The tea plantations have historically been founded on the principle of sexual division of labour. In the formation of the labour practices, discourses and perceptions of the physical body of the worker had an important role to play. In the plantation, the workspace could roughly be divided into the garden and factory though there were many differences between various parts of the field. Spaces were markedly gendered, constituting the typical features of labour in these various sites. Based on an almost sacrosanct sexual division of labour, the tasks assigned to the men and women spawned different kinds of spatiality.
