"As long as the family system prevails": gender, the family and law in indentured labour recruitment in India, 1800-1930

我通过性别视角和家庭的棱镜来分析印度契约劳工项目。通过从根本上理解契约劳工的招募过程，我分析了劳工家庭的法律建设既是殖民解决项目，也是经济获取的手段。契约劳动使印度人民和居住在他们被送往的殖民地的人民都与国家签订了越来越多的合同，并加强了对国家的控制。这种接触不仅通过直接控制，而且通过创造和操纵社会因素来调解。我质疑为什么契约的逻辑和家庭的逻辑如此截然不同。我希望既能揭开契约家庭的面纱，也能揭开人们对他们的想象。除此之外，我还将分析如何在家庭的幌子下构建性别劳工制度。关键问题是殖民地对女性气质和男性气质的理解如何影响这一点，以及经济因素起到了什么作用。我理解这一点的关键是萨米塔·森关于婚姻对殖民时期印度劳动力管制的效用的著作。最后，我来看看契约家庭的空间性及其影响，特别是关于土著的影响。与契约相关的不同群体什么时候被读作“归属感”，什么时候被读作“陌生人”？这一切是如何写入法律并通过法律永久存在的？在这个项目中，我使用了多种方法，包括跨国历史、酷儿理论、空间性和作为权力项目的性别。

I analyse the project of Indian indentured labour through a gendered lens and through the prism of the family. By understanding the processes of recruitment for indentured labour as fundamentally gendered, I analyse the legal construction of the labouring family as both a colonial settlement project and as a means of economic extraction. Indentured labour brought both Indian people and the people who inhabited the colonies they were sent to into increasing contract with and control of the state. This contact was mediated not just through direct control but also by creating and manipulating societal factors. I question why the logics of indenture and the logics of family have been held so distinct. I hope to uncover both who the indentured family was and what it was imagined they could be. Alongside this, I will analyse the ways in which a gendered labour system was constructed under the guise of the family. Key questions for this are how colonial understandings of femininity and masculinity affected this and what role did economic factors play. Crucial to my understanding of this is Samita Sen's work on the utility of marriage for the regulation of labour in colonial India. Finally, I look at the spatiality of the indentured family and it's impacts, particularly with regards to indigeneity. When were different groups associated with indenture read as 'belonging' and when were they read as 'strangers'? How was all of this written into and perpetuated through the law? For this project I utilise multiple methodologies, including transnational history, queer theory, spatiality and gender as a project of power.