Colonial Caregivers

Satya Shikha Chakraborty's 'Colonial Caregivers' explores the histories and lived experiences of South Asian ayahs from the late 18th to the mid-20th century, centering their domestic and moral labor within British imperial households.

The book analyzes cultural representations—paintings, missionary literature, children’s tales—and legal archives such as petitions and court cases to reveal a sentimentalized ayah archetype that legitimized colonial rule while obscuring caregivers' vulnerabilities.

Chakraborty traces how race, caste, gender, and emerging colonial medicine shaped employers' preferences and anxieties, and how ayahs navigated travel, abandonment, and loss of caste.

The work also examines ayahs in elite South Asian households and argues that colonial legacies persist in contemporary domestic labor precarity.

Combining cultural and social history with decolonial methodology, the book foregrounds ayahs' voices and calls attention to the ongoing marginalization of care workers.