HST6069 Worlds of Labour: Working Class Lives in Colonial South Asia

Module summary

Together with the image of India as an emerging economic 'powerhouse', there is another image that receives a huge amount of international attention - that of over-crowded slums, pavement-dwellers, grinding poverty, filth and squalor. Behind such generalised depictions, though, lie rich and varied lives of working class Individuals. This module intends to examine these lives in some detail, and will situate them within a wide range of contexts (e.g. e.g. within mills, factories, plantations, the White Sahib's bungalow etc). In doing this, it will focus on the long nineteenth century – a period when urbanisation had gathered pace, and factories, mills and plantations became more numerous.