An Economy of Lies: Informal Income, Phone-Banking and Female Migrant Workers in Kolkata, India

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

This article will analyze rural-urban migrant workers' multiple journeys of financial secrecies, gendered solidarities and covert income-management through the use of smartphones and net-banking in the city. Using the narratives of informal domestic workers in Kolkata, a city in eastern India, I show how migrant women managed a shadow network of personal savings, free of surveillance from their rural kin, that was creatively positioned at the interface of modern digital technologies and traditional social relations. I develop the concept of 'migra-monies' to underline how such hidden cash flows within migration landscapes emboldened female workers to envision non-normative gendered subjectivities and economically secure fiscal futures.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies
Volume20
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)164-176
Number of pages13
ISSN1556-2948
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Sep 2022

    Research areas

  • Gender, digital saving, migration, urban slums, informal labor, MOBILE MONEY, WOMEN, COMMUNICATION, NETWORKS, GENDER

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