Periodic Reporting for period 3 - LawsOfSocRep (Laws of Social Reproduction)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-02-28
Feminist scholars have long demonstrated the invisibility of women’s reproductive labour, performed in bearing and raising children, maintaining households and socially sustaining male labour. Feminist economists have strived to get international agencies and national governments to redraw the “production boundary” to ensure the recognition of women’s unpaid labour. Today mainstream international institutions acknowledge the need for women’s economic empowerment and note how their unpaid labour hinders their participation in the formal economy, particularly in the global South. Sustainable Development Goal 5.4 requires that unpaid care and domestic work be recognised , reduced and redistributed through nationally appropriate policies. This project retheorises the very concept of social reproduction. Anchored in India, the project conceptualises female reproductive labour to include unpaid domestic work but also abject labour performed by women outside of of marriage and for the market, namely, sex work, erotic dancing, commercial surrogacy and paid domestic work. Placing varied forms of reproductive labour along the market-marriage continuum, the project demonstrates the law’s key role in producing and entrenching the invisibility of women’s reproductive labour in these sectors, and offers a cross-sectoral comparison of the law’s highly differential regulation of these disparate forms of female reproductive labour. Drawing on feminist legal theory and deploying methodologies ranging from doctrinal case law analysis to ethnographies of women’s labour markets, the project problematises law’s jurisdictional boundaries over women’s reproductive labour with a view to developing a holistic understanding of reproductive labour while exploring prospects for enhancing women’s economic justice.
Events
• 10 workshops, attracting up to 300 people
• 3 Annual Lectures attended by over 300 people each
• A monthly seminar series on social reproduction since March 2020
Research
Compiled comprehensive bibliographies and literature reviews on five sectors
Obtained ethics approvals from King’s College London and IFMR
Conducted substantial legal research for five sectors over a 15-25 year period
Conducted virtual and in-person field work including through interviews, focus group discussions and surveys. The numbers of stakeholders reached are:
Sex work – 3500
Erotic dancing –125
Surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies –1100 (ongoing)
Paid domestic work – 30 (ongoing)
Unpaid domestic work—1300
Dissemination and outputs
The team presented papers at 35 different conferences.
We wrote 13 op-eds, the PI had 13 press interviews and we wrote 13 articles and book chapters.
Our research has led to increased inter-disciplinary training and engagement. We have developed a novel methodology of studying case law in the courts over extended periods of time to uncover knowledge gaps to make a valuable contribution to the academic literature. We have been intellectually nimble and methodologically creative in identifying new areas of research which has received little scholarly attention. To illustrate, studies of sex work are typically focused on the appropriate policy approach towards sex work (e.g. decriminalisation or legalisation). We instead conducted research on the housing precarity of sex workers in large red-light areas in major cities. On erotic dancing the focus is typically on dance bars in metropolitan cities. We instead studied erotic dance traditions in rural areas. With respect to commercial surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) we are studying the impact of new laws on ART and surrogacy passed in 2021. With respect to paid domestic work, rather than focus on a sector specific law for domestic work, we look at laws applicable to large gated communities in metro cities to argue for worker welfare. Finally, we examine under explored legal fields like tort law to understand how women’s work is valued. We are currently studying a large roll out of unconditional cash transfer schemes to women in various states which recognises their unpaid work. Throughout the process of doing this research we have involved stakeholders from trade unions and worker’ organisations so that we build pathways for ongoing impact.
• 10 workshops, attracting up to 300 people
• 3 Annual Lectures attended by over 300 people each
• A monthly seminar series on social reproduction since March 2020
Research
Compiled comprehensive bibliographies and literature reviews on five sectors
Obtained ethics approvals from King’s College London and IFMR
Conducted substantial legal research for five sectors over a 15-25 year period
Conducted virtual and in-person field work including through interviews, focus group discussions and surveys. The numbers of stakeholders reached are:
Sex work – 3500
Erotic dancing –125
Surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies –1100 (ongoing)
Paid domestic work – 30 (ongoing)
Unpaid domestic work—1300
Dissemination and outputs
The team presented papers at 35 different conferences.
We wrote 13 op-eds, the PI had 13 press interviews and we wrote 13 articles and book chapters.
Our research has led to increased inter-disciplinary training and engagement. We have developed a novel methodology of studying case law in the courts over extended periods of time to uncover knowledge gaps to make a valuable contribution to the academic literature. We have been intellectually nimble and methodologically creative in identifying new areas of research which has received little scholarly attention. To illustrate, studies of sex work are typically focused on the appropriate policy approach towards sex work (e.g. decriminalisation or legalisation). We instead conducted research on the housing precarity of sex workers in large red-light areas in major cities. On erotic dancing the focus is typically on dance bars in metropolitan cities. We instead studied erotic dance traditions in rural areas. With respect to commercial surrogacy and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) we are studying the impact of new laws on ART and surrogacy passed in 2021. With respect to paid domestic work, rather than focus on a sector specific law for domestic work, we look at laws applicable to large gated communities in metro cities to argue for worker welfare. Finally, we examine under explored legal fields like tort law to understand how women’s work is valued. We are currently studying a large roll out of unconditional cash transfer schemes to women in various states which recognises their unpaid work. Throughout the process of doing this research we have involved stakeholders from trade unions and worker’ organisations so that we build pathways for ongoing impact.
The major contribution of the project to the state of the art is to interrogate and contextualise the basic premises of social reproduction theory as developed in global north countries and re-imagine vocabularies of social reproduction based on the lived experiences of women’s live in global south countries like India which will be relevant for countries in Asia and Africa.
We have conducted comprehensive studies of case law over long time periods on the five sectors. This helps us find trends in the law’s regulation of women’s work but it also creates a baseline for feminist legal research which can be updated by scholars in the future. In addition, we have also identified new areas of research which has received little scholarly attention and we hope to address significant gaps in the literature and the legal scholarship while also contributing to advocacy efforts especially through litigation and law reform. For instance, our research on the housing precarity of sex workers can be used for advocacy with municipal and local bodies to improve sex workers’ living conditions. Our research on erotic dancing in rural areas can help highlight the problems that women dancers face and can be used by the judge who requested the report to help protect their rights. Our study on the negative impact of the new ART and surrogacy laws on fertility treatments can be used to inform pending public interest litigation in the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of these new laws. Our research on resident welfare associations and how they treat domestic workers can be used by trade unions to litigate for domestic workers’ rights and thus help shift social norms. Our study of the newly introduced unconditional cash transfer schemes can help inform the government on whether they are enhancing female empowerment and on how they should be structured at the national level to secure women’s economic justice. We have been intellectually nimble and methodologically creative and we hope that our research will be practically relevant to social movements and workers’ organisations. We also hope to apply for proof of concept funding on gendered contracts.
We have conducted comprehensive studies of case law over long time periods on the five sectors. This helps us find trends in the law’s regulation of women’s work but it also creates a baseline for feminist legal research which can be updated by scholars in the future. In addition, we have also identified new areas of research which has received little scholarly attention and we hope to address significant gaps in the literature and the legal scholarship while also contributing to advocacy efforts especially through litigation and law reform. For instance, our research on the housing precarity of sex workers can be used for advocacy with municipal and local bodies to improve sex workers’ living conditions. Our research on erotic dancing in rural areas can help highlight the problems that women dancers face and can be used by the judge who requested the report to help protect their rights. Our study on the negative impact of the new ART and surrogacy laws on fertility treatments can be used to inform pending public interest litigation in the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of these new laws. Our research on resident welfare associations and how they treat domestic workers can be used by trade unions to litigate for domestic workers’ rights and thus help shift social norms. Our study of the newly introduced unconditional cash transfer schemes can help inform the government on whether they are enhancing female empowerment and on how they should be structured at the national level to secure women’s economic justice. We have been intellectually nimble and methodologically creative and we hope that our research will be practically relevant to social movements and workers’ organisations. We also hope to apply for proof of concept funding on gendered contracts.