Suchergebnisse

This article investigates why it is so difficult for women to succeed in politics in India, and it analyses this from a grassroots perspective in a slum in New Delhi. Based on longitudinal ethnographic research, I explore and compare in-depth the political trajectories of two women activists and examine why, despite being successful leaders of women and allied with male political 'godfathers', they have ended up leaving grassroots activism altogether. I show that both women were first pulled into political activism by NGOs working on women's empowerment, that both later allied with male politicians to help draw 'the women's vote' and that both women's respective success largely rested on their concern with so-called women's causes. However, neither of them was able to build up their own patronage networks, which is necessary to gain an independent political standing in politics. They remained dependent on their male political mentors and on family support; losing one or both of these instigated their respective exits from activism and politics.

AbstractCovering one hundred years, this paper recounts the life stories of three generations of middle-class women of the New Delhi-based Kapoor family. By taking the methodological view that individuals born approximately at the same time, within the same class segment, and at the same cultural place will be shaped by the same historical structures so that their lives to some extent are synchronized into a gendered, generational experience, these three life stories are viewed as voices that reflect their respective generational class segments. In view of this, the paper uses the three life stories to discuss changes in women's agency within the urban, educated, upper middle-class. Agency is here understood as control over resources, and it is argued that in order to understand changes in women's agency, one should take into account the impact of both social, economic structures and cultural ideologies. When analysing the three life stories, the overall finding is that the granddaughter has had more control over her own life than her mother and grandmother. However, by acknowledging that cultural ideologies and social economic structures are not always synchronized, a nuanced and many-dimensional picture of twists and turns in these middle-class women's degree and type of agency over time emerges.

'Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India' explores key processes of gendered change in contemporary India. Through ethnographically grounded case studies, the volume foregrounds the contradictory and contested co-existence of discrepant gendered norms, values and visions in a society caught up in wider processes of sociopolitical change.

The pace of socioeconomic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades has been formidable. This volume sheds light on how these transformations have played out at the level of everyday life to influence the lives of Indian women, and gender relations more broadly. Through ethnographically grounded case studies, the authors portray the contradictory and contested co-existence of discrepant gendered norms, values and visions in a society caught up in wider processes of sociopolitical change. 'Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India' moves the debate on gender and social transformation into the domain of everyday life to arrive at locally embedded and detailed, ethnographically informed analyses of gender relations in real-life contexts that foreground both subtle and not-so-subtle negotiations and contestations

This article analyzes the political activities of residents in a 50-year-old slum in New Delhi. Based on long-term fieldwork undertaken periodically between 2004 and 2019, we describe the forms of oppression experienced by slum residents, how they cope in their everyday lives and how they have responded to their oppression. In order to understand the nature of slum residents' political activity, we also analyze forms of group consciousness and solidarity among residents. We identify three main channels through which slum residents act politically: by voting, by taking part in protests and demonstrations, and by using informal intermediaries. We show that they are fully aware of being oppressed and express dissatisfaction with the government and 'the rich'. However, their political activities are quite limited and constrained by the structural context within which they act. Their primary goal is to be included on equal terms in the existing system, not to change that system. Hence, their strategies can be described as affirmative rather than transformative. The analysis brings out three main points: First, that without external assistance slum residents lack the organizational capacity for sustained political mobilization; second, therefore their main way to seek political influence is through local intermediaries; and third, that while their reliance on intermediaries enables them to access certain goods and services it also paradoxically reinforces their marginalization.

Framed within a discussion of boundary work and its many facets, this article develops a critical understanding of the discourses that shape the material and symbolic hierarchies of power asserted by employers of domestic workers in Indian households. We analyze the nature of discourses that are mobilized in the boundary work practiced by different groups of employers in India as they negotiate their relationships with their domestic workers. Drawing on fieldwork in Mumbai and Chennai, our analysis outlines two different discourses within the nature of boundary work - one centered on the trope of benevolent maternalism and another which mobilizes a market-based trope - and delineate how these diverge and converge in the relationship between employers and domestic workers. We also show how these discourses differ according to two key factors: on the one hand, whether the employers hire full-time or part-time workers, and on the other hand, the specific positional attributes of the employers in terms of age, occupation, and family background. We argue that these two discursive categories are not watertight compartments, but are located on a spectrum, and that employers therefore exhibit elements of both maternalism and market-based approaches within the relationship with their workers. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)