Biography

Madhavi Jha is a postdoctoral fellow at Centre for South Asian Civilizations, Department of Historical Studies. Based on her PhD research, she is currently working on a book manuscript titled Women at Work: Women Labourers and Public Works Construction in Colonial India. Departing from the usual histories of construction work which present masculine experiences, this book offers insights gained from accounting for women labourers in a sector that remains the second largest employer of women in India today. Her research interests include labour, gender, infrastructural history, social stratification, and social and political movements. Her postdoctoral research explores the history of groups associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.

Publications

“‘Men Diggers and Women Carriers’: Gendered Work on Famine Public Works in Colonial North India”, International Review of Social History, 65 (1), 71-98, 2020: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859019000579

“Women’s Work in Nineteenth Century Rural Bihar” in Women in Rural Production Systems: TheIndian Experience, eds. V.K. Ramachandran, Madhura Swaminathan and Shruti Nagbhushan (Tulika Books, Columbia University Press, 2020)