Labour is deeply intertwined with caste, gender and class in the socioeconomic fabric of India. However, caste and gender are the two factors that remain ignored in this discourse. In the Hindu social order, the caste system assigns vocations through arbitrary hierarchy, producing pernicious structures of marginalisation. Labour performed by Dalits is often stereotyped through casteist assumptions that naturalise certain kinds of work as “belonging” to these peripheral communities. These stereotypes that are perpetuated historically, culturally and socio-politically, are furthered through mechanisms of caste that operate in the material and affective realms. 

What has been kept invisibilised even within the discourse of Dalit labour is the different forms of labour carried out by Dalit women. Their labour has been catering to the lives of Savarnas for generations. In premodern times, Dalit midwives were denied access into domestic space but their labour was indispensable for maintaining its structure (Gupta, 44). Dalit women primarily enter the workforce as domestic workers, where their labour sustains everyday household functions while being systematically disrespected and appropriated. Their bodies are incessantly sexualised in both domestic and public spheres. In the popular traditions of Tamasha, Arkestra etc., the masses enjoy their cultural labour in the public space, at the same time condemning it as obscene in their “sanitised” setups. This is further complicated in the emotional, sexual, reproductive and digital realms. Dalit women working in the households of caste-Hindus are also expected to look after minors, often at the cost of their own children being neglected. Dalit nurses and ayahs are routinely employed in “upper caste” urban residences to provide care for elderly patients. These forms of care work are typically organised under conditions that rarely permit adequate rest or significant breaks. In recent times of technological advancement, women from the Dalit and Adivasi communities, also known as “ghost workers” (Behal), are burdened with the labour of watching and filtering sexually explicit and violent content for hours. In this oppressive system, Dalit women are constantly rendered vulnerable to physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

This book aims to rethink Dalit labour as a distinct category and how women define this field. It intends to raise a wide range of questions concerning Dalit women’s labour, simultaneously problematising the very category of labour: How do we understand and negotiate Dalit labour as a specific category in the neoliberal age? What effects do these forms of labour have on Dalit women? Has the digital turn helped or adversely affected the livelihoods of Dalit women? Where and how should we situate sexual and reproductive labour? Can these categories of labour turn into sites of resistance and negotiation for/by Dalit women? 

Methodologically this book proposes to extend the idea of labour beyond Marxist notions of value and commodity production, while engaging with Ambedkarite and Feminist discourses that conceptualise it as a gender and caste regulated practice. The book envisions possible futures which can open up prospects of reimagining Dalit women’s labour as a creative and dynamic terrain. Our aim is to advance for an epistemic structure that conceptualises Dalit women’s labour as simultaneously physical, affective and emotional, and advocates for the socio-cultural dignity to which Dalit women are historically entitled.  

We invite submissions on areas that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Theorising Dalit women’s labour 

• Contemporary categorisations of Dalit labour

• Dalit women’s labour and migration

• Affective regulations of labour and economies of care

• Digital/AI-driven labour and its effects

• Dalit women’s dignity in/through labour

• Dalit women, labour and bodily autonomy

• Urban alienation and Dalit women’s precarious positions

• Labour and cultural productions

• Labour and Dalit women’s resistance

Submission Guidelines: Abstracts of 250-300 words that adhere closely to the theme, along with a short bio (75-100 words), should be sent to anticaste.sensibilities98@gmail.com by 15th August, 2026. 

This edited volume is to be published by a reputed publisher. Full-length chapters (7000-8000 words), which are expected by 20th October, 2026, will undergo a rigorous peer-review process before the final publication. 

References:

Behal, Anuj. “‘In the End, You Feel Blank’: India’s Female Workers Watching Hours of Abusive Content to Train AI.” The Guardian, 5 Feb. 2026, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/feb/05/in-the-end-you-feel-blank-indias-female-workers-watching-hours-of-abusive-content-to-train-ai.

Gupta, Charu. “Dirty ‘Other’ Vamp: (Mis)Representing Dalit Women.” The Gender of Caste: Representing Dalit in Print, University of Washington Press 2016, pp. 28–51.

About the book editors:

Saundarya is a Senior Research Fellow pursuing her PhD at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has completed her M.Phil. from the Department of English, University of Delhi. Her research interests include Dalit Literature, Anti-Caste Studies, Affect Theory, Utopian Philosophy and Cultural Studies. She is interested in exploring the politics of aesthetics and emotions in marginalised literature and culture. 

Durba Mandal is a final year Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her proposed PhD thesis focuses on traumatic memory and sonic agency within literary life writings. Her interest areas are Sound Studies, Autobiographies and Life Writings, Memory and Trauma Studies, Dalit Writings and Bengali Literature.