Shalini Grover
Biographic Data
| ID | 3686708 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shalini Grover |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shalini |
| FAMILY NAME | Grover |
| SIGNATURE | GROVER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4083-5806 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Mai kya hūņ? (what am I?): Masculinities, paid domestic labour and care work in Delhi and Gurgaon, India
This article introduces and conceptualises ‘protective care’ – a masculinised and commodified form of caregiving – involving male domestic workers (MDWs) in India. Drawing on ethnographic research, it describes how MDWs negotiate gendered authority within feminized and stigmatised labour. Challenging portrayals of MDWs as passive or silenced, the article highlights constrained agency and efforts to assert masculine respectability. By linking empi…
Care-work for colonial and contemporary white families in India: A historical-anthropology of the racialized romanticization of the ayah
This article examines interracial gendered care-work through the figure of the ayah (maid) serving white families in India from the late-eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Historical and anthropological scholarships on domestic labor in India remain self-contained fields, and mostly focus on middle-class Indian households. Our comparative study offers insights into the racialized romanticization of the ayah through a trans-temporal approach …
Placement agencies for care-domestic labour: Everyday mediation, regimes of punishment, civilizing missions, and training in globalized India
Survey data on Indian labour points to a rapid expansion of the care-domestic economy, currently the main employment avenue for urban women. Hitherto, studies on domestic service portray the unequal class structures of master-servant relationships and the escalating phenomenon of live-out and part-time hired help. This article shifts the focus to under-researched, yet increasingly visible, placement agencies, which regulate care-domestic markets …
English-speaking and Educated Female Domestic Workers in Contemporary India: New Managerial Roles, Social Mobility and Persistent Inequality
This article foregrounds a labour market for English-speaking and educated female domestic workers and their Western expatriate employers. Many women in this anthropological study had left office jobs and institutional environs connoting dignity to take up employment in Euro-American households performing what is widely perceived as low-status work. Using the narratives of domestic workers, this article scrutinizes motivations for opting for a st…
Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour: Ethnographic Studies from Globalizing India
Our introduction to this Special Issue draws out themes from all four articles which focus on India’s domestic-care economy: women’s paid domestic labour, care work and surrogacy. Through fine-grained ethnographic detail, all the articles nuance questions around agency and resistance, and actively challenge the ‘passive victim’ stereotype that continues to be the primary imaginary in many representations of domestic-care workers. We describe how …
Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support: Lived Experiences of the Urban Poor in India
This book makes use of interesting case studies and photographs to describe everyday life in a squatter settlement in Delhi. The book helps to understand the marital experiences of these people most of whom belong to the Scheduled Caste and live in one identified geographical space. The author describes the shifts within their marriages, remarriages and other kinds of unions and their striking diversities, which have been described with care. Sha…
Jural relations of middle‐class marriage and women as legal subjects in the imaginary of ‘new India’
In India's capital New Delhi, four Family Courts were set up between 2009 and 2012, and 12 mediation institutions known as Crime Against Women Cells ( CAW cells) were established during the same period. The Indian state has also endorsed gender‐equalising family legislation, mutual‐consent divorce and introduced new language of and for mediation. Together with India's projection of a rising global economy, these recent legal changes have engender…
Revisiting the Devyani Khobragade controversy: The value of domestic labor in the global south
On December 13, 2013 the high-profile media coverage of Devyani Khobragade, the United States-based Indian diplomat, who was allegedly underpaying her maid, brought into sharp focus unequal employer-employee relations. This ‘Voices’ commentary directs us to the interstices of global inequalities, domestic labor, and care-giving between the genders. With the globalization of domestic labor, migrant care workers around the world face commonalities.…
Women, Gender, and Everyday Social Transformation in India
‘The pace of socio-economic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades has been formidable’ (p. 1). This leitmotif informs this inquiry, comprising 15 chapters on everyday life an
Purani aur nai shaadi: ’ Separation, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Lives of the Urban Poor in New Delhi
Low-caste women and men in New Delhi frequently remarry in their lifetimes. While one of the major stories about social change in modern India is that divorce is growing by leaps and bounds, for the urban poor in large cities remarriage remains foremost a practical necessity. For the lowest castes in India, the virtual absence of high-caste chastity norms pertaining to their conjugal lives has hitherto been a putative route for explaining why cer…
Lived experiences: Marriage, notions of love, and kinship support amongst poor women in Delhi
In the popular discourse, 'arranged marriage' and 'love marriage' are assumed to be radically opposed forms of conjugal union, associated with equally polarised responses from the natal kin-approval and encouragement for the former and the opposite for the latter. This article critically examines the lived experiences of 'arranged marriages' and 'love marriages' among working-class women in Delhi in order to show how, in practice, conjugal relati…
Lived experiences: Marriage, notions of love, and kinship support amongst poor women in Delhi
In the popular discourse, 'arranged marriage' and 'love marriage' are assumed to be radically opposed forms of conjugal union, associated with equally polarised responses from the natal kin-approval and encouragement for the former and the opposite for the latter. This article critically examines the lived experiences of 'arranged marriages' and 'love marriages' among working-class women in Delhi in order to show how, in practice, conjugal relati…
Purani aur nai shaadi: ’ Separation, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Lives of the Urban Poor in New Delhi
Low-caste women and men in New Delhi frequently remarry in their lifetimes. While one of the major stories about social change in modern India is that divorce is growing by leaps and bounds, for the urban poor in large cities remarriage remains foremost a practical necessity. For the lowest castes in India, the virtual absence of high-caste chastity norms pertaining to their conjugal lives has hitherto been a putative route for explaining why cer…
Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour: Ethnographic Studies from Globalizing India
Our introduction to this Special Issue draws out themes from all four articles which focus on India’s domestic-care economy: women’s paid domestic labour, care work and surrogacy. Through fine-grained ethnographic detail, all the articles nuance questions around agency and resistance, and actively challenge the ‘passive victim’ stereotype that continues to be the primary imaginary in many representations of domestic-care workers. We describe how …
English-speaking and Educated Female Domestic Workers in Contemporary India: New Managerial Roles, Social Mobility and Persistent Inequality
This article foregrounds a labour market for English-speaking and educated female domestic workers and their Western expatriate employers. Many women in this anthropological study had left office jobs and institutional environs connoting dignity to take up employment in Euro-American households performing what is widely perceived as low-status work. Using the narratives of domestic workers, this article scrutinizes motivations for opting for a st…
Women, Gender, and Everyday Social Transformation in India
‘The pace of socio-economic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades has been formidable’ (p. 1). This leitmotif informs this inquiry, comprising 15 chapters on everyday life an
Care-work for colonial and contemporary white families in India: A historical-anthropology of the racialized romanticization of the ayah
This article examines interracial gendered care-work through the figure of the ayah (maid) serving white families in India from the late-eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Historical and anthropological scholarships on domestic labor in India remain self-contained fields, and mostly focus on middle-class Indian households. Our comparative study offers insights into the racialized romanticization of the ayah through a trans-temporal approach …
Revisiting the Devyani Khobragade controversy: The value of domestic labor in the global south
On December 13, 2013 the high-profile media coverage of Devyani Khobragade, the United States-based Indian diplomat, who was allegedly underpaying her maid, brought into sharp focus unequal employer-employee relations. This ‘Voices’ commentary directs us to the interstices of global inequalities, domestic labor, and care-giving between the genders. With the globalization of domestic labor, migrant care workers around the world face commonalities.…
Placement agencies for care-domestic labour: Everyday mediation, regimes of punishment, civilizing missions, and training in globalized India
Survey data on Indian labour points to a rapid expansion of the care-domestic economy, currently the main employment avenue for urban women. Hitherto, studies on domestic service portray the unequal class structures of master-servant relationships and the escalating phenomenon of live-out and part-time hired help. This article shifts the focus to under-researched, yet increasingly visible, placement agencies, which regulate care-domestic markets …
Lived experiences: Marriage, notions of love, and kinship support amongst poor women in Delhi
In the popular discourse, 'arranged marriage' and 'love marriage' are assumed to be radically opposed forms of conjugal union, associated with equally polarised responses from the natal kin-approval and encouragement for the former and the opposite for the latter. This article critically examines the lived experiences of 'arranged marriages' and 'love marriages' among working-class women in Delhi in order to show how, in practice, conjugal relati…
Purani aur nai shaadi: ’ Separation, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Lives of the Urban Poor in New Delhi
Low-caste women and men in New Delhi frequently remarry in their lifetimes. While one of the major stories about social change in modern India is that divorce is growing by leaps and bounds, for the urban poor in large cities remarriage remains foremost a practical necessity. For the lowest castes in India, the virtual absence of high-caste chastity norms pertaining to their conjugal lives has hitherto been a putative route for explaining why cer…
Women, Gender, and Everyday Social Transformation in India
‘The pace of socio-economic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades has been formidable’ (p. 1). This leitmotif informs this inquiry, comprising 15 chapters on everyday life an
Marriage, Love, Caste and Kinship Support: Lived Experiences of the Urban Poor in India
This book makes use of interesting case studies and photographs to describe everyday life in a squatter settlement in Delhi. The book helps to understand the marital experiences of these people most of whom belong to the Scheduled Caste and live in one identified geographical space. The author describes the shifts within their marriages, remarriages and other kinds of unions and their striking diversities, which have been described with care. Sha…
Jural relations of middle‐class marriage and women as legal subjects in the imaginary of ‘new India’
In India's capital New Delhi, four Family Courts were set up between 2009 and 2012, and 12 mediation institutions known as Crime Against Women Cells ( CAW cells) were established during the same period. The Indian state has also endorsed gender‐equalising family legislation, mutual‐consent divorce and introduced new language of and for mediation. Together with India's projection of a rising global economy, these recent legal changes have engender…
Revisiting the Devyani Khobragade controversy: The value of domestic labor in the global south
On December 13, 2013 the high-profile media coverage of Devyani Khobragade, the United States-based Indian diplomat, who was allegedly underpaying her maid, brought into sharp focus unequal employer-employee relations. This ‘Voices’ commentary directs us to the interstices of global inequalities, domestic labor, and care-giving between the genders. With the globalization of domestic labor, migrant care workers around the world face commonalities.…
English-speaking and Educated Female Domestic Workers in Contemporary India: New Managerial Roles, Social Mobility and Persistent Inequality
This article foregrounds a labour market for English-speaking and educated female domestic workers and their Western expatriate employers. Many women in this anthropological study had left office jobs and institutional environs connoting dignity to take up employment in Euro-American households performing what is widely perceived as low-status work. Using the narratives of domestic workers, this article scrutinizes motivations for opting for a st…
Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour: Ethnographic Studies from Globalizing India
Our introduction to this Special Issue draws out themes from all four articles which focus on India’s domestic-care economy: women’s paid domestic labour, care work and surrogacy. Through fine-grained ethnographic detail, all the articles nuance questions around agency and resistance, and actively challenge the ‘passive victim’ stereotype that continues to be the primary imaginary in many representations of domestic-care workers. We describe how …
Care-work for colonial and contemporary white families in India: A historical-anthropology of the racialized romanticization of the ayah
This article examines interracial gendered care-work through the figure of the ayah (maid) serving white families in India from the late-eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Historical and anthropological scholarships on domestic labor in India remain self-contained fields, and mostly focus on middle-class Indian households. Our comparative study offers insights into the racialized romanticization of the ayah through a trans-temporal approach …
Placement agencies for care-domestic labour: Everyday mediation, regimes of punishment, civilizing missions, and training in globalized India
Survey data on Indian labour points to a rapid expansion of the care-domestic economy, currently the main employment avenue for urban women. Hitherto, studies on domestic service portray the unequal class structures of master-servant relationships and the escalating phenomenon of live-out and part-time hired help. This article shifts the focus to under-researched, yet increasingly visible, placement agencies, which regulate care-domestic markets …
Mai kya hūņ? (what am I?): Masculinities, paid domestic labour and care work in Delhi and Gurgaon, India
This article introduces and conceptualises ‘protective care’ – a masculinised and commodified form of caregiving – involving male domestic workers (MDWs) in India. Drawing on ethnographic research, it describes how MDWs negotiate gendered authority within feminized and stigmatised labour. Challenging portrayals of MDWs as passive or silenced, the article highlights constrained agency and efforts to assert masculine respectability. By linking empi…
Sociology (10 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Social science (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (5 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works)