Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka

287 Pages·2019·17.637 MB·English

by  Mythri Jegathesan

Decolonizing Feminisms
Piya Chatterjee, Series Editor

Tea and Solidarity
Tamil Women and Work
in Postwar Sri Lanka
Mythri Jegathesan
University of Washington
Seattle
Tea and Solidarity was made possible in part by a grant from the Office
of the Provost at Santa Clara University.
Copyright © 2019 by the University of Washington Press
Printed and bound in the United States of Amer i ca
Composed in Chaparral Pro, typeface designed by Carol Twombly
23 22 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher.
Photo graphs are by the author unless other wise noted.
University of Washington Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Jegathesan, Mythri, author.
Title: Tea and solidarity : Tamil women and work in postwar Sri Lanka / Mythri
Jegathesan.
Description: Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2019] | Series: Decolonizing
feminisms | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: lccn 2018046960 (print) | lccn 2018051383 (ebook) |
isbn 9780295745664 (ebook) | isbn 9780295745657 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780295745671 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Women plantation workers—Sri Lanka—Social conditions. |
Women, Tamil—Employment—Sri Lanka. | Women, Tamil—Sri Lanka—
Social conditions. | Feminism—Sri Lanka. | Sri Lanka—Social conditions—
21st century.
Classification: lcc HD6073.P4692 (ebook) | lcc HD6073.P4692 S725 2019 (print) |
ddc 331.4089/9481105493—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046960
Cover illustration by Hanusha Somasunderam
Cover design by Katrina Noble
The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1984.∞
To the workers and families on Sri Lanka’s tea plantations
and my Amma and Appa

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowle dgments xv
Abbreviations xxi
Note on Transliteration xxiii
Introduction
Unbecoming Labor 3
1 Productive Alternatives 27
2 Unfixing Language and Landscape 50
3 Living the Wage 77
4 Building Home 100
5 “From the Womb to the Tomb” 126
6 Dignity and Shame 151
7 Contingent Solidarities 176
Conclusion 201
Notes 213
Bibliography 231
Index 245

Preface
May 19, 2009. Delmon’s Hospital. Wellawatte, Colombo. I was waiting to see
my great uncle who had suffered from a stroke the month before. As I
sat with my aunt in the lobby, the Sinhala teledrama playing on the
government- run tele vi sion channel, Swarnavahini, cut abruptly for
breaking news. Doctors, nurses, patients, and visitors momentarily for-
got their social hierarchies and crowded together below the mounted
tele vi sion, their eyes fixed on the moving image. The initial recording,
released by Sri Lankan security forces, lasted approximately fifteen sec-
onds but had been looped to give the appearance of continual footage.
The screen filled with the image of a man’s corpse. Its eyes were wide
open, its body bloated, stiff, and stained with blood, looking as surprised
as all of us watching. A blue handkerchief covered what appeared to be a
severe trauma to the front of its head and separated the brown- skinned
body from the color swatch of green lagoon- like grass, which was l ater
confirmed to be Nanthikadal Lagoon in Sri Lanka’s northeast Mullaitivu
district. In the island’s North and East, Sri Lankan security forces and
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had been fighting intensely
since the 2002 ceasefire agreement (CFA) between both parties. The 2002
CFA had temporarily halted fighting between both parties that formally
began in 1983, but in December 2005 it officially broke down and fight-
ing had resumed. On the tele vi sion screen, soldiers milling around the
body w ere smiling, talking quickly, and taking out their cell phones to
capture images of the corpse’s pruned flesh and bloodstained fatigues.
In the commotion, one solider checked for a pulse by grabbing the right
inner wrist of the lifeless body, which had already been laid down on its
back with the hands touching each other on a white sheeted carrier for
ix