tea and solidarity

This project began as a doctoral dissertation research study in 2008 on tea plantation life and the politics of gender, development and life in Sri Lanka. I work with Malaiyaka or Hill Country Tamils, an ethnic minority community living in Sri Lanka. My research specifically examines how Malaiyaka tea plantation residents and their families, who work across formal and informal labor sectors including tea plantation, agricultural smallholder, shop, garment, domestic, and construction and tourism, understand dynamics of gender, labor, caste, and class in their life and work experiences. I also work with community organizers, development and right-based workers and activists to study the social, economic, and political dimensions of human rights and international development for plantation communities in relation to Sri Lanka’s longer histories of ethnonationalism, caste oppression, labor and civil violence in the colonial and postcolonial context. This research has been supported by National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS), and Santa Clara University (SCU).