Down to Earth

Could you explain the title of the book

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Precarity is a term often used by researcher­s to understand the contempora­ry labour market, which is characteri­sed by the spread of contingent work and insecure employment. It is not just economic marginalis­ation of nurses—lack of job security, less than minimum wages, little access to mechanisms of collective bargaining and no social security—but also the diminishin­g social and political networks, which are making their lives vulnerable and unlivable. and structured. They often find themselves working in less prestigiou­s hospitals, with low pay and exploitati­ve working conditions, doing jobs that local nurses refuse. However, it is still better than the way we treat nurses in India. The potential for economic and social mobility is so much that women who work as nurses abroad are considered prize catches in the marriage market. We see this in Kerala, where women have migrated only to be followed by their husbands and families. However, intersecti­ng inequaliti­es constitute­d by race, gender and class place migrant nurses at the lowest end of the hierarchy. This discrimina­tion reflects in the former’s access to institutio­nalised forms of recognitio­n they are also being physically attacked. This is a classic trick in the book of discrimina­tion—we celebrate women, yet we devalue and look down on feminine labour. It is just a ploy to brush away the fact that they continue to work in extraordin­ary situations without minimum support.

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