Asiya Islam
Biographic Data
| ID | 144656 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Asiya Islam |
| GIVEN NAMES | Asiya |
| FAMILY NAME | Islam |
| SIGNATURE | ISLAM A |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1983-9944 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Tensions of Care
This Symposium examines the ‘tensions of care’ that permeate the everyday practices, politics and infrastructures of care particularly in the Global South. Building on debates about the crisis of care and the unequal distribution of reproductive labour, the collection foregrounds how care is simultaneously sustaining and depleting, agentic and constraining, enabling and exploitative. By centring proximate, vernacular and historically situated for…
Middle’ in urban India
The 21st century has been branded the age of the global middle class. Against this sweeping claim, ethnographies show that there are as many middle classes as there are ways of living. Beyond the plurality of middle classes, where do we arrive by conceptualising middle classes from the Global South? In this paper, I draw upon the narratives of young women in Delhi, who describe themselves as neither ‘hi-fi’, nor ‘gae-gujre’ [destitute], but in th…
A 'working lives' approach to platform work
Building on recent interventions in platform work scholarship that centre social reproduction and draw attention to informal economies in the Global South, this paper advances a 'working lives' framework to account for the entanglements of production/reproduction, informality and precarity, and gender norms in the shaping of platform work. Based on interviews with women engaged in delivery work through digital platforms in Buenos Aires, Argentina…
Becoming 'working' women
This article explores the value of Skeggs' Formations of Class and Gender for the study of changing social relations amidst rapid socio-economic change in post-liberalisation India. The article is based on insights and reflections from long-term ethnographic research with young lower middle class women in Delhi, employed in the emerging services sector. For these young women, 'working' is not merely an activity, it is an identity. And employment …
Embodied Acting, Belonging and Gender Inequalities in Service Work
This article proposes the concept of 'embodied acting' to understand workers' transformations of their appearances (clothes, makeup) and related behaviours (English speaking, eating out, dating) to create belonging in new service work in Global South contexts characterised by continuing social inequalities amid rapid socio-economic change. The concepts aesthetic labour, emotion work and acting at work, theorised from the Global North, do not acco…
Introduction to February’s theme
Introduction to December’s theme
Reading list
Françoise Vergès in conversation
Ethnographic (dis) locations
This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the …
Emma Casey and Jo Littler in conversation
Introduction to August’s Theme
Introduction to December’s theme
Work-from/at/for-home
Plastic Bodies
Drawing on the narratives of young lower-middle-class women employed in cafés, call centers, shopping malls, and offices in Delhi, India, in this paper I identify malleability or 'plasticity' of the body as an important feature of contemporary service work. As neophyte service professionals, young women mold themselves to the middle-/upper-class milieu of their workplaces through clothes, makeup, and body language. Such body plasticity can be exp…
Two hours extra for working from home”
This article explores, through the case study of Prachi, a young woman working for an e‐commerce company in Delhi, India, the immediate and potential long‐term gendered implications of the coronavirus disease‐2019 pandemic. While one of the more “privileged” workers who did not lose her job during the crisis, Prachi had to suddenly and swiftly adapt to the practice of “work from home.” As a neophyte service worker with very limited infrastructure…
It Gets Really Boring if You Stay at Home
This article explores narratives of boredom among young lower middle class women employed in the bourgeoning services sector in India, across cafes, call centres, malls and offices. These young women cite boredom from 'sitting at home' as a reason to seek employment. Adopting Bourdieu's understanding of temporal relations as informed by 'subjective expectations' and 'objective chances', I place young women's temporal narratives in the context of …
Ethnographic (dis) locations
This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the …
Two hours extra for working from home”
This article explores, through the case study of Prachi, a young woman working for an e‐commerce company in Delhi, India, the immediate and potential long‐term gendered implications of the coronavirus disease‐2019 pandemic. While one of the more “privileged” workers who did not lose her job during the crisis, Prachi had to suddenly and swiftly adapt to the practice of “work from home.” As a neophyte service worker with very limited infrastructure…
It Gets Really Boring if You Stay at Home
This article explores narratives of boredom among young lower middle class women employed in the bourgeoning services sector in India, across cafes, call centres, malls and offices. These young women cite boredom from 'sitting at home' as a reason to seek employment. Adopting Bourdieu's understanding of temporal relations as informed by 'subjective expectations' and 'objective chances', I place young women's temporal narratives in the context of …
Plastic Bodies
Drawing on the narratives of young lower-middle-class women employed in cafés, call centers, shopping malls, and offices in Delhi, India, in this paper I identify malleability or 'plasticity' of the body as an important feature of contemporary service work. As neophyte service professionals, young women mold themselves to the middle-/upper-class milieu of their workplaces through clothes, makeup, and body language. Such body plasticity can be exp…
Middle’ in urban India
The 21st century has been branded the age of the global middle class. Against this sweeping claim, ethnographies show that there are as many middle classes as there are ways of living. Beyond the plurality of middle classes, where do we arrive by conceptualising middle classes from the Global South? In this paper, I draw upon the narratives of young women in Delhi, who describe themselves as neither ‘hi-fi’, nor ‘gae-gujre’ [destitute], but in th…
It Gets Really Boring if You Stay at Home
This article explores narratives of boredom among young lower middle class women employed in the bourgeoning services sector in India, across cafes, call centres, malls and offices. These young women cite boredom from 'sitting at home' as a reason to seek employment. Adopting Bourdieu's understanding of temporal relations as informed by 'subjective expectations' and 'objective chances', I place young women's temporal narratives in the context of …
Two hours extra for working from home”
This article explores, through the case study of Prachi, a young woman working for an e‐commerce company in Delhi, India, the immediate and potential long‐term gendered implications of the coronavirus disease‐2019 pandemic. While one of the more “privileged” workers who did not lose her job during the crisis, Prachi had to suddenly and swiftly adapt to the practice of “work from home.” As a neophyte service worker with very limited infrastructure…
Work-from/at/for-home
Plastic Bodies
Drawing on the narratives of young lower-middle-class women employed in cafés, call centers, shopping malls, and offices in Delhi, India, in this paper I identify malleability or 'plasticity' of the body as an important feature of contemporary service work. As neophyte service professionals, young women mold themselves to the middle-/upper-class milieu of their workplaces through clothes, makeup, and body language. Such body plasticity can be exp…
Emma Casey and Jo Littler in conversation
Introduction to August’s Theme
Introduction to December’s theme
Introduction to February’s theme
Introduction to December’s theme
Reading list
Françoise Vergès in conversation
Ethnographic (dis) locations
This paper revisits discussions about the pursuit of a singular location for ethnographic research. Citing challenges to the fixity of location, from circulation of people to the impossibility of containing digital worlds, scholars have proposed multi-sited, multi-scalar, multi-modal and multi-sensorial ethnographies, advocating that the researcher 'follow the actor'. Drawing upon these innovations, this paper traces the affects generated in the …
Middle’ in urban India
The 21st century has been branded the age of the global middle class. Against this sweeping claim, ethnographies show that there are as many middle classes as there are ways of living. Beyond the plurality of middle classes, where do we arrive by conceptualising middle classes from the Global South? In this paper, I draw upon the narratives of young women in Delhi, who describe themselves as neither ‘hi-fi’, nor ‘gae-gujre’ [destitute], but in th…
A 'working lives' approach to platform work
Building on recent interventions in platform work scholarship that centre social reproduction and draw attention to informal economies in the Global South, this paper advances a 'working lives' framework to account for the entanglements of production/reproduction, informality and precarity, and gender norms in the shaping of platform work. Based on interviews with women engaged in delivery work through digital platforms in Buenos Aires, Argentina…
Becoming 'working' women
This article explores the value of Skeggs' Formations of Class and Gender for the study of changing social relations amidst rapid socio-economic change in post-liberalisation India. The article is based on insights and reflections from long-term ethnographic research with young lower middle class women in Delhi, employed in the emerging services sector. For these young women, 'working' is not merely an activity, it is an identity. And employment …
Embodied Acting, Belonging and Gender Inequalities in Service Work
This article proposes the concept of 'embodied acting' to understand workers' transformations of their appearances (clothes, makeup) and related behaviours (English speaking, eating out, dating) to create belonging in new service work in Global South contexts characterised by continuing social inequalities amid rapid socio-economic change. The concepts aesthetic labour, emotion work and acting at work, theorised from the Global North, do not acco…
Tensions of Care
This Symposium examines the ‘tensions of care’ that permeate the everyday practices, politics and infrastructures of care particularly in the Global South. Building on debates about the crisis of care and the unequal distribution of reproductive labour, the collection foregrounds how care is simultaneously sustaining and depleting, agentic and constraining, enabling and exploitative. By centring proximate, vernacular and historically situated for…
Sociology (12 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · History (4 works) · Narrative (4 works) · World Wide Web (4 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (3 works)