Resistance: Cultural Expression of Tea Plantation Workers in Bangladesh

Sammanfattning: This thesis is an ethnographic study of culture, economy, everyday life, and resistance among ‘Baganiyas’ (workers) of a tea plantation in contemporary Bangladesh. The main goal of this thesis is to highlight the Baganiyas' everyday resistance to the systemic alienation of the plantation structure and to demonstrate how their actions of resistance served as symbolic representations of their community's culture. It draws on the finding from an 18-day field trip with additional autoethnography and netnography conducted while the world was experiencing a global pandemic in 2020. Based on ethnographic observation, participation, interviews, and collaborative dialogues the study aims to explore the social life and stories of the people who bring the most consumed drink in the world into our cup from the ‘Bagan’ (garden). It traces the emerging subjectivities of the Baganiya - Worker, Planter – Manager, Planter – Owner, and neighboring others regarding the garden, on what they are commonly connected to. In doing so, the study investigates workers’ economic network that leads to the social and political association of the workers, which connects them to the occupational and institutional hierarchy within and beyond the plantation. The study explores resistance as culture in a symbolic form that stems from the structural inequality that alienates the workers from tea and everything outside the plantation. However, it argues that the resistance is not an act of idleness, rather an invisible tactic by the workers to counter the hegemonic strategy.