Arunima Datta, Fleeting Agencies: A Social History Of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 254 pp.

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jofstudindentleg.2.2.0142
• Published date: 22 December 2022
• Date: 22 December 2022
• Pages: 142-143
• Author: Maria del Pilar Kaladeen

Journal of Indentureship 2.2 December 2022

Book reviews

Arunima Datta. 2021. Fleeting Agencies: A Social History

of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press), 254 pp.

Maria del Pilar Kaladeen

Maria del Pilar Kaladeenis an associate fellow at the Institute of

Commonwealth Studies.

An important contribution to the field of indentureship studies in

relation to women and systems of unfree labour in Malaysia,

Arunima Datta’s monograph analyses the periodic resistance of

female Indian labourers on the colonial rubber plantations of

Malaysia (their moments of ‘fleeting’ agency) to argue for a better

appreciation of their vital role in resistance to colonially man-

aged, oppressive forms of plantation labour. Datta’s study refers

not only to the period of indenture in Malaysia but also

theKanganysystem that followed it and lasted until 1938.

The great strength of Datta’s book lies in its convincing argu-

ment for a reconfiguring of female Indian plantation labourers in

Malaysia during the period of indenture and beyond. She uses sub-

stantial archival evidence and oral history interviews to challenge

constructions of Indian women as occupying inconsequential work-

spaces on the plantation, stressing the importance of their role as

weeders on the plantations and highlighting the fact that they were

able to perform the same tasks as men, tapping for example, to

claim equal wages. She argues, with a good deal of evidence, for an

understanding of these plantation women as fully aware of their

value as labourers within the colonial rubber industry.

DOI:10.13169/jofstudindentleg.2.2.0142