Livelihoods after resettlement: women's work, collective care, and solidarity in disaster recovery

Abstract

This paper critically examines livelihood recovery in the peripheral resettlement sites of Chennai, India, following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Despite the implementation of various gender‐inclusive livelihood programmes as a part of disaster recovery, our longitudinal empirical research reveals a persistent gap between formal recovery measures and the everyday conditions required for livelihoods to become gender‐inclusive and sustainable over time. Drawing on in‐depth fieldwork, we explore how women respond in the long term to these limitations: not simply through individual coping strategies but also by developing and maintaining collective, care‐centred practices, including adapting domestic spaces to work, sharing childcare responsibilities, and building networks of mutual support. These practices are often invisible in official recovery frameworks, yet they serve as critical choices for women both to sustain their livelihoods and perform their care roles. We build on Joan C. Tronto and Berenice Fisher's (1990) theory of caring to conceptualise these acts as forms of ‘caring with’, where care becomes a collective, political, and relational response to systemic exclusion. In doing so, we reposition disaster recovery not merely as a return to normalcy or economic productivity but also as a deeply social and gendered process that is shaped by care and solidarity.