 Women and Waste: The Question of Shit-workBarbara Harriss-White Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 2023, vol. 30, issue 3, 271-287 Abstract: One of the fastest-growing sectors of the Indian economy is waste. Its labour illustrates Deliege’s paradox of material essentiality combined with social stigma and marginalisation. Between 2015 and 2019 the production and disposal of waste in a small South Indian town was traced through its circuits of industrial production (agro-processing), distribution (of people and of food), consumption, the production of labour (human wastes) and the reproduction of society (health care activity). The material substances of waste, their physical organisation and gendered labour processes are mapped onto each circuit. This enables a discussion of three questions: (a) regulative institutions in the formal and informal waste economy; (b) the gendering of property and work in the capitalist waste economy and (c) the gendered significance of collective action. The privatisation of waste work has caused a deterioration in work conditions throughout the waste economy. Literally and metaphorically, waste work is shit-work in which women experience the worst conditions in both physical and economic terms. Keywords: Gender; India; shit-work; urban informal economy; waste; women’s work (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indgen:v:30:y:2023:i:3:p:271-287 DOI: 10.1177/09715215231183613 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Indian Journal of Gender Studies from Centre for Women's Development Studies |
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