Online Book Launch: Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India4.10.2026 {en}
Tokyo College Gender, Sexuality & Identity Collaborative Project is excited to invite you to “CareFul Chit-Chat & Celebration!: Dr. Satya Shikha Chakraborty’s Online Book Launch, Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India (Cambridge University Press, 2025).” Dr. Chakraborty’s (The College of New Jersey) talk will be followed by comments by Dr. Yoko Taguchi (Hiroshima University) and a Q&A.
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Date & Time : Wednesday, November 25, 7-8:30pm JST
Zoom Registration: https://u-tokyo-ac-jp.zoom.us/meeting/register/PSieydJDRcG9wOES8_EIZQ#/registration
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About the Book:
Colonial Caregivers offers a compelling cultural and social history of ayahs (nannies/maids), by exploring domestic intimacy and exploitation in colonial South Asia. Working for British imperial families from the mid-1700s to the mid-1900s, South Asian ayahs, as Chakraborty shows, not only provided domestic labor, but also provided important moral labor for the British Empire. The desexualized racialized ayah archetype upheld British imperial whiteness and sexual purity, and later Indian elite ‚upper‘ caste domestic modernity. Chakraborty argues that the pervasive cultural sentimentalization of the ayah morally legitimized British colonialism, while obscuring the vulnerabilities of caregivers in real-life. Using an archive of petitions and letters from ayahs, fairytales they told to British children, court cases, and vernacular sources, Chakraborty foregrounds the precarious lives, voices, and perspectives of these women. By placing care labor at the center of colonial history, the book decolonizes the history of South Asia and the British Empire.
See more details: https://www.tc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/18097/
In Japanese: https://www.tc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/18092/
Flyer design: Mateus R Oliveira
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Eri Kitada, PhD.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Tokyo College, University of Tokyo
Further information at https://www.tc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/18097/.
Source: Online Book Launch on Nov 25, Wed, 7-8:30pm JST: Colonial Caregivers, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online „CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.“
