Nursing in Kolkata: Everyday Politics of Labour, Power and Subjectivities

Abstract

Research on ‘care work’ tends to focus on relations between gender and ‘care’ at the cost of obfuscating caste and class markings that devalue such labour. This article argues that the service work of the contemporary nursing profession, as observed in Kolkata, continues to be devalued, not because it is care work but because it is linked to low-caste/out-caste women who have historically provided nursing care. To counter such stigma, nursing has witnessed a splintering along the lines of ‘prestigious’ and ‘dirty’ work. This cleavage, based on historically and socially produced structural inequalities, is supported both by organisational strategies and a privileged section of workers, who deploy ‘merit’ or cultural capital to close ranks against others. The article examines how women located at the bottom of this hierarchy resist such strategies. What does ritual, banal everyday resistance imply for processes and practices that reproduce organisational inequalities?