The fiction of ‘fluid nuclear units’: rearticulating relations through domestic work in Mumbai

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fictions that account for nature-culture have always been crucial for the anthropology of kinship, but the significance of fiction has increased through the extension of new technologies and global transactions. This paper examines the dynamics of householding relations in Mumbai through the lens of fiction. A contemporary middle-class household in India is a rich field of study, as it is filled with the memories of family retailers, the responsibilities and expectations of family members as well as of domestic workers and their families, and the uncertain relations of everyday life. As recent literature on domestic work and servitude suggests, these complex relations also reflect historical inequalities. By focusing on paid domestic work, this paper not only examines external inequalities but inquires into the generation and potential transformation of households and of kinship itself. It then illustrates how domestic work with entangled social imaginaries creates a new image of family, one which does not simply reflect a shift from the feudal to the modern, or from joint family to nuclear family, but rearticulates relations by evoking various fictions.