The tea plantations of Dooars in West Bengal are founded on a gendered division of labour. The recent economic crisis faced by the tea plantations brought long-established labour practices into question. Mounting expenses and closures led to rising migration of plantation workers to distant urban areas in North and South India, in search of alternative employment. Many of these women found employment as domestic workers and care workers in Delhi and Gurgaon. Drawing on the in-depth narratives of these migrant domestic workers, this article explores self-perceptions and representations of work and brings to the forefront the ongoing process of skill acquisition on the one hand and its constant invisibilization on the other. This reproduces paid domestic and care work not only as women’s natural labour but as low skilled and low status work that is particularly suitable for migrant women. The women’s own perceptions help problematize and nuance otherwise monolithic understandings of labour in general and domestic labour in particular.

中文翻译：

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从“种植园工人”到瑙克拉尼

西孟加拉邦 Dooar 的茶园建立在性别分工的基础上。最近茶园面临的经济危机使长期以来的劳动实践受到质疑。不断增加的费用和关闭导致种植园工人越来越多地迁移到印度北部和南部的偏远城市地区，以寻找替代工作。其中许多妇女在德里和古尔冈找到了家庭佣工和护理员的工作。本文借鉴这些外来家政工人的深入叙述，探讨了他们对工作的自我认知和表征，一方面将持续的技能获取过程和另一方面的持续隐匿化过程带到了前沿。这不仅将有偿家务和护理工作再现为女性的自然劳动，而且再现为特别适合移民女性的低技能和低地位的工作。妇女自己的看法有助于问题化和细微差别，否则对一般劳动特别是家务劳动的整体理解。