Masculinities & paid domestic-care labour in India

This article focuses on male domestic-care workers (MDCWs) in India. It explores how constructed notions of masculinity interplay with labour market structures, enable forms of labour discipline and shape labour subjectivities. The article details performative and embodied gendered practices engaged in by MDCWs, illuminates the interplay of spatial and temporal aspects of paid domestic-care work with gendered skill sets and labour roles, and connects the differentiated masculinities performed by MDCWs to the broader political economy of domestic-care labour. It also highlights how MDCWs utilise their gender to express degrees of agency vis-à-vis employers and others. The article argues that MDCWs perform masculinities in variegated ways in the face of stigma, marginalisation, and relations of servitude. These performances are not devoid of agency, but are commoditised within the political economy of the domesticcare sector and are framed within patriarchal gender norms as ‘protective care’ or as work requiring other masculine attributes

Obstetric and perinatal outcome of twin pregnancy: a prospective study in a tertiary care hospital in North India

Background: Multiple pregnancy constitutes an important portion of high risk pregnancies and is a matter of grave concern to obstetricians and paediatricians owing to maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality associated to it. Objective of present study was to evaluate maternal and perinatal outcome of twin pregnancy.Methods: This observational study included 50 women with twin pregnancy with gestational age of 26 weeks or more. Maternal and perinatal outcomes were studied.Results: The incidence of twin pregnancy was 2.8 % with maximum incidence in age group of 20 -29 years and in multigravida. Mean gestational age was 34.2 weeks. Vertex - vertex fetal presentation was most common presentation. Most frequent mode of delivery was ceserean section (54%). Preterm labour was most common maternal complication (74%), followed by anaemia (62%). Complications in perinatal period were birth hypoxia (58 %), intrauterine growth restriction (15 %), hyper-bilirubinemia (11%) and neonatal sepsis (10 %). 88% of the newborns were LBW. Perinatal mortality in our study was 17%.Conclusions: Twin pregnancies are associated with significant maternal and perinatal morbidity which is more so for second twin. Effective antenatal care planned delivery and good pediatric facilities help decrease the complications. Managment of twin pregnancy requires multidisciplinary approach and involvement of skilled obstetricians and paediatricians

Masculinities & paid domestic-care labour in India

This article focuses on male domestic-care workers (MDCWs) in India. It explores how constructed notions of masculinity interplay with labour market structures, enable forms of labour discipline and shape labour subjectivities. The article details performative and embodied gendered practices engaged in by MDCWs, illuminates the interplay of spatial and temporal aspects of paid domestic-care work with gendered skill sets and labour roles, and connects the differentiated masculinities performed by MDCWs to the broader political economy of domestic-care labour. It also highlights how MDCWs utilise their gender to express degrees of agency vis-à-vis employers and others. The article argues that MDCWs perform masculinities in variegated ways in the face of stigma, marginalisation, and relations of servitude. These performances are not devoid of agency, but are commoditised within the political economy of the domesticcare sector and are framed within patriarchal gender norms as ‘protective care’ or as work requiring other masculine attributes

Portraits of women’s paid domestic-care labour: Ethnographic studies from globalizing India

Our introduction to this Special Issue draws out themes from all four articles which focus on India’s domestic-care economy: women’s paid domestic labour, care work and surrogacy. Through fine-grained ethnographic detail, all the articles nuance questions around agency and resistance, and actively challenge the ‘passive victim’ stereotype that continues to be the primary imaginary in many representations of domestic-care workers. We describe how the articles detail the intimacy, emotional labour and complex spatial dynamics inherent within a sector that often involves working in the homes of others, caring for children, and complex relationships with employers. Additionally, we show how care workers encounter quotidian forms of bodily control, distancing, segregation, authority, stigma, coercion, punitive sanctions and stark exploitation embedded in the intersections of class, caste, gender and ethnicity. To provide a wider framing for the articles, we utilize this introduction to situate them within broader historical and geographical contexts. Thus, we consider how Global Care Chains (GCCs), labour markets, migration, and colonial/postcolonial considerations interplay in shaping the everyday lives of domestic care workers in contemporary globalizing India

Challenges and opportunities in mixed method data collection on mental health issues of health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Background: The present paper describes the key challenges and opportunities of mixed method telephonic data collection for mental health research using field notes and the experiences of the investigators in a multicenter study in ten sites of India. The study was conducted in public and private hospitals to understand the mental health status, social stigma and coping strategies of different healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative interviews were conducted telephonically. The experiences of data collection were noted as a field notes/diary by the data collectors and principal investigators.Results: The interviewers reported challenges such as network issues, lack of transfer of visual cues and sensitive content of data. Although the telephonic interviews present various challenges in mixed method data collection, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face data collection using available technology.Conclusions: It is important that the investigators are well trained keeping these challenges in mind so that their capacity is built to deal with these challenges and good quality data is obtained

Poor women's experiences of marriage and love in the city of New Delhi : everyday stories of sukh aur dukh

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Placement agencies for care-domestic labour: everyday mediation, regimes of punishment, civilizing missions and training in globalized India

Survey data on Indian labour points to a rapid expansion of the care-domestic economy, currently the main employment avenue for urban women. Hitherto, studies on domestic service portray the unequal class structures of master–servant relationships and the escalating phenomenon of live-out and part-time hired help. This article shifts the focus to under-researched, yet increasingly visible, placement agencies, which regulate care-domestic markets and provide diverse services, from specialized ‘patient care’ to the training of subaltern communities. The article discusses how these service providers denote prominent shifts in skill sets, intra-household care arrangements, forms of medical assistance, and new (and old) mechanisms of authority. The ethnography expands our knowledge of everyday mediations around hiring and training between agencies, employers, and care-domestic workers in New Delhi. The article puts forward innovative conceptualizations of service provider approaches through juxtaposing the informal practices of local (or Indian) agencies with formalized and ‘civilizing’ agendas developed by Euro-American intermediaries. The formal–informal dichotomized framework of service provider relationships adds to critical scholarship that contrived dualisms which need historical scaffolding and nuanced engagement. I argue that, while informal and formal approaches appear markedly different for the care-domestic economy, they also overlap. Significantly, both approaches are unjustly weighted against the workers who lack the potential to democratize labour relations. Local agencies reinforce exploitative care-domestic relationships, while Euro-American intermediaries, who espouse modern values, formalization, and civilizing experiments, promulgate punitive regimes and stigmatized futures for their Indian subjects

Care-work for colonial and contemporary white families in India: a historical-anthropology of the racialized romanticization of the ayah

This article examines interracial gendered care-work through the figure of the ayah (maid) serving white families in India from the late-eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Historical and anthropological scholarships on domestic labor in India remain self-contained fields, and mostly focus on middle-class Indian households. Our comparative study offers insights into the racialized romanticization of the ayah through a trans-temporal approach combining archival work (for British imperial households in the past) with ethnographic research (for Euro-American expatriate households in the present). While exploring the parallels in colonial and contemporary domestic dynamics, and the intertwining of interracial anxieties and sentimentalization, we pay close attention to the subjectivities of Indian ayahs and their changing labor roles

Obstetric and perinatal outcome of twin pregnancy: a prospective study in a tertiary care hospital in North India

Background: Multiple pregnancy constitutes an important portion of high risk pregnancies and is a matter of grave concern to obstetricians and paediatricians owing to maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality associated to it. Objective of present study was to evaluate maternal and perinatal outcome of twin pregnancy.Methods: This observational study included 50 women with twin pregnancy with gestational age of 26 weeks or more. Maternal and perinatal outcomes were studied.Results: The incidence of twin pregnancy was 2.8 % with maximum incidence in age group of 20 -29 years and in multigravida. Mean gestational age was 34.2 weeks. Vertex - vertex fetal presentation was most common presentation. Most frequent mode of delivery was ceserean section (54%). Preterm labour was most common maternal complication (74%), followed by anaemia (62%). Complications in perinatal period were birth hypoxia (58 %), intrauterine growth restriction (15 %), hyper-bilirubinemia (11%) and neonatal sepsis (10 %). 88% of the newborns were LBW. Perinatal mortality in our study was 17%.Conclusions: Twin pregnancies are associated with significant maternal and perinatal morbidity which is more so for second twin. Effective antenatal care planned delivery and good pediatric facilities help decrease the complications. Managment of twin pregnancy requires multidisciplinary approach and involvement of skilled obstetricians and paediatricians

Plasma induced graft polymerization of acrylic acid onto poly(ethylene terephthalate) monofilament

9-14The graft polymerization of acrylic acid has been carried out on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) monofilament to introduce carboxylic acid groups. The filament is treated with oxygen plasma for the introduction of peroxides and subsequently grafted with acrylic acid. The influence of monomer concentration, plasma exposure time and reaction temperature on the degree of grafting has been investigated. The grafted filament is subsequently immobilized with chitosan. ATR-FTIR confirms the immobilization of chitosan. The contact angle decreases from 72° for virgin PET to 38° for 180s plasma exposured sample, 42° for the grafted and 36° for the chitosan immobilized sample which shows significant improvement in the wettability. The surface topography of filaments is characterized by atomic force microscopy