A history of progressive Doxa: an exploration of Bengali women’s labour power

Abstract

ABSTRACT This discussion paper is presented to be read in three simultaneous and different modalities. At one level, it is a historiography of British Bengali women’s labour power and hence an exploration of the historical constraints that vis-a-vis appear as a natural logical consequence but on closer examination performed as part of a broader structure of inequality. At another level, it intervenes, utilising the theoretical lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ to inform an awareness that does not pathologize, but instead reads against the constructed layers of assumptions to foreground the social conditions that appear as social structures in diminishing Bengali women’s labour power. Finally, the discussion expands the site of analysis, arguing under Sunni orthodoxy based upon the recitation, women have significant labour rights, moreover those rights have diminished in Bangladesh. At the same time, in Britain, social conditions have superseded religious limitations that have benefitted British Bengali women.