The concept of agency refers to the capacity of individuals or groups to act intentionally, make choices, and intervene in social, economic, and political structures that shape their lives. In critical theory, agency is not understood as absolute freedom but as situated action—performed within constraints such as class, gender, caste, labour conditions, and institutional power. Agency emerges through autonomy, resistance, and discursive power, especially among marginalised communities.
Autonomy within agency denotes the ability to make decisions regarding one’s own life, labour, and identity. However, autonomy in marginalised contexts is often partial and negotiated rather than complete. Resistance refers to acts—both overt and subtle—that challenge domination, exclusion, or invisibility. Power in discourse involves the ability to speak, narrate, represent oneself, and redefine meanings imposed by dominant structures. Together, these dimensions reveal agency as a dynamic, collective, and evolving practice.
Agency and Kudumbashree
Kudumbashree, Kerala’s women-led poverty eradication and self-help network, exemplifies collective agency rooted in everyday life. The programme enables women, particularly from economically and socially marginalised backgrounds, to exercise autonomy through micro-enterprises, neighbourhood groups, and participation in local governance. While individual economic independence is significant, Kudumbashree’s deeper contribution lies in transforming women from passive beneficiaries into active decision-makers.
Agency in Kudumbashree operates through economic autonomy—women control savings, credit, and production—and through social independence, in which they negotiate roles within the family and community. Resistance here is not confrontational but structural and gradual, challenging patriarchal dependence by normalising women’s public presence, leadership, and financial literacy. Discursively, Kudumbashree reshapes narratives around poor women by representing them as entrepreneurs, organisers, and agents of development rather than as recipients of welfare.
Agency and the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC)
The Women in Cinema Collective represents a more explicit and confrontational articulation of agency within a male-dominated cultural industry. Formed in response to systemic gender discrimination, harassment, and silencing in the Malayalam film industry, the WCC asserts autonomy over professional dignity, bodily integrity, and creative labour.
Here, agency is exercised through resistance to hegemonic power structures, including informal networks that control casting, production, and public narratives. The WCC challenges these structures by demanding accountability, institutional reform, and ethical workspaces. Discursively, the collective plays a crucial role in reclaiming voice—women speak publicly about experiences that were traditionally erased or normalised. Their interventions redefine cinema not merely as art or entertainment but as a workplace governed by rights and responsibilities. Thus, agency in WCC is both political and symbolic, reshaping public discourse on gender, labour, and power.
Agency among Women in Unorganised Sectors
Women working in unorganised sectors—such as domestic work, agriculture, fisheries, construction, street vending, and home-based labour—experience some of the most constrained forms of agency. Precarity, lack of legal protection, informal contracts, and social invisibility mark these sectors. Yet agency persists in everyday negotiations, survival strategies, and collective organising.
Autonomy here is often limited but meaningful: women decide work timings, manage multiple income sources, and sustain households under unstable conditions. Resistance frequently takes subtle forms, such as refusing exploitative employers, forming informal unions, or participating in self-help groups and cooperatives. Discursively, when women in unorganised sectors speak about their labour—through testimonies, protests, or cultural representation—they challenge dominant narratives that render their work as unskilled or insignificant. Their agency lies not in overturning structures instantly but in enduring, adapting, and asserting value within oppressive systems.
Power, Discourse, and Collective Agency
Across Kudumbashree, WCC, and unorganised sectors, the agency functions most effectively when it becomes collective rather than individual. Power is not only exercised through economic resources or institutional authority but through language, visibility, and narrative control. When women name injustice, organise together, and create alternative discourses, they disrupt dominant power relations.
Agency, therefore, is not merely action but meaning-making. It involves transforming silence into speech, dependency into participation, and invisibility into recognition. These examples demonstrate that agency among marginalised women is relational, contextual, and deeply political, even when expressed through everyday practices rather than dramatic rebellion.
