Bodies in/out of place

Hegemonic masculinity and kamins’ motherhood in Indian coal mines

Bibliographic Data

ID8106839
AuthorsKuntala Lahiri‐dutt (0000-0003-1336-1422, Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume4
Issue2
Pages213-229
Publication date2013-02-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth Asian History and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1947-2498 • E-ISSN: 1947-2501
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19472498.2013.768846
OpenAlexW2147005991
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited53

In public discourse and representation, mine pits are naturalized as masculine domains – as the most obvious place of work for men by virtue of their physiological or biological traits. In this article I explore how such hegemonic masculinity is constructed, propagated and accepted as natural. Towards this aim, I bring together within a large frame the debates around the past and present conditions of women in the coal mines in eastern India, debates that allow us to further excavate the sources and spaces of masculinist discourses in the mining industry as a whole. More specifically, I analyse the debate that took place in the 1920s centring on women's reproductive functions in the collieries. Within this context, women's bodies are the source of biological essentialism, which justifies their exclusion and promulgates mining masculinity

Archaeology · Coal · Coal mining · Context (archaeology · Essentialism · Hegemonic masculinity · Hegemony · Masculinity · Natural (archaeology · Political science · Representation (politics · Sociology · Virtue · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Sex work and related issues