1. An Economy of Lies: Informal Income, Phone-Banking and Female Migrant Workers in Kolkata, India.
- Author
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Sen, Atreyee
- Subjects
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MIGRANT labor , *INFORMAL sector , *HOUSEHOLD employees , *HUMAN migration patterns , *CASH flow , *DIGITAL technology - Abstract
This article will analyze rural-urban migrant workers' multiple journeys of financial secrecies, gendered solidarities and covert income-management through the use of smartphones and net-banking in the city. Using the narratives of informal domestic workers in Kolkata, a city in eastern India, I show how migrant women managed a shadow network of personal savings, free of surveillance from their rural kin, that was creatively positioned at the interface of modern digital technologies and traditional social relations. I develop the concept of 'migra-monies' to underline how such hidden cash flows within migration landscapes emboldened female workers to envision non-normative gendered subjectivities and economically secure fiscal futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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