Waiting on Empire

Arunima Datta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of History, University of North Texas. She is the author of the multiple award-winning book Fleeting Agencies: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (2021), which received the Sara A. Whaley Award from the National Women's Studies Association, the Gita Chaudhuri Award from the Western Association of Women Historians and the Stansky Award from the North American Conference of British Studies. Her earlier work on the history of travelling ayahs in Britain has also won the Carol Gold Award. She serves as an associate editor of Gender & History, Britain and the World, and as an Associate Review Editor of the American Historical Review. Her works have appeared in scholarly journals, public history journals and magazines, and on BBC4.

Waiting on Empire is a landmark book, giving long overdue attention to the most significant population of colonized women workers in Victorian Britain. Ayahs enabled British colonizers to maintain families despite their global mobility, critical to the resilience of British imperial rule. This beautifully written book restores these neglected women to the historical record, offering a sophisticated interpretation of women's agency and deftly recasting traveling ayahs as knowledgeable, enterprising, and resourceful skilled workers.

• Acknowledgements Introduction: Mobile Caregivers for the Empire 1: Becoming Travelling Ayahs and Supporting the Empire: Historical And Contextual Background 2: Waiting in the Heart of Empire: Abandoned Travelling Ayahs and the Contradictions of a Liberal Empire 3: Creative Resilience in Contexts of Crisis: Making Arguments and Evoking Sympathy 4: Capitalizing on Waiting: Creative Use of Time by Travelling Ayahs 5: Travelling Ayahs and Ayahs' Homes: Humanitarianism, Evangelism and Profit 6: Travellers' Tales: Negotiating Waiting in Wars And <"Exotic> " Spaces Conclusion Profiles Glossary Bibliography Index