Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India

Kenneth Bo Nielsen And Anne Waldrop

Description

‘Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India’ explores key processes of gendered change in contemporary India through stimulating and ethnographically grounded case studies.

The pace of socioeconomic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades has been formidable. This volume sheds light on key processes of gendered change by exploring how macro-structural processes of social transformation interface with everyday life-worlds to generate new contestations and contradictions that impinge directly on the everyday lives of ordinary Indian women, and on the relations between genders.

Through ethnographically grounded case studies, the contradictory and contested co-existence of discrepant gendered norms, values and visions in a society caught up in wider processes of sociopolitical change are portrayed. ‘Women, Gender and Everyday Social Transformation in India’ moves the debate on gender and 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.

The chapters take the reader inside the university classroom as well as the NGO, the urban slum and the rural health clinic; they visit the Pentecostal church, the call centre and the beaches of Goa; they venture into the men’s rights group, the court room and the anti-land acquisition rally; they engage with Maoist writings and the ideology of neoliberal governance and they analyse the use of grinders, mixers, make-up, smart phones and solar photovoltaic mini-grids – to name but a few.

Acknowledgements; Women and Gender in a Changing India; Part I: Work, Technology, Aspirations; 1. Today’s ‘Good Girl’: The Women behind India’s BPO Industry – Reena Patel; 2. Gender, Intersectionality and Smart Phones in Rural West Bengal – Sirpa Tenhunen; 3. The Introduction of Electricity in the Sunderban Islands: Conserving or Transforming Gender Relations? – Tanja Winther; 4. Changing Consumption and the Negotiation of Gender Roles in Kerala – Harold Wilhite; 5. Gender, Work and Social Change: Return Migration to Kerala – Berit Helene Vandsemb; 6. Showtime and Exposures in New India: The Revelations of Lucky Farmhouse – Nicol Foulkes and Stig Toft Madsen; Part II: Democracy and the Developmental State; 7. Gender and Democratisation: The Politics of Two Female Grassroots Activists in New Delhi – Stein Sundstøl Eriksen and Anne Waldrop; 8. The Reproductive Body and the State: Engaging with the National Rural Health Mission in Tribal Odisha – Arima Mishra and Sidsel Roalkvam; 9. A Veiled Change Agent: The ‘Accredited Social Health Activist’ in Rural Rajasthan – Dagrun Kyte Gjøstein; 10. Disciplining Gender and Gendering Discipline: Women’s Studies in Contemporary India – Mallarika Sinha Roy; Part III: Assertions and Activism; 11. New Subalterns? Feminist Activism in an Era of Neoliberal Development – Srila Roy; 12. Family, Femininity, Feminism: ‘Structures of Feeling’ in the Articulation of Men’s Rights – Romit Chowdhury; 13. Women’s Activism in the Singur Movement, West Bengal – Kenneth Bo Nielsen; 14. The Women’s Question and Indian Maoism – Lipika Kamra; 15. Caste and Class in Gendered Religion: Dalit Women in Chennai’s Slums – Karin Kapadia; About the Editors and Contributors

Sujets

• General officer
• Social sciences
• Anthropology
• General
• Gender studies

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 01 août 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783082704
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Women, Gender and Everyday
Social Transformation in India

Anthem South Asian Studies

The celebrated Anthem South Asian Studiesscontinue series
to lead the field with first rate studies on history, sociology, anthropology and
economics. The series addresses academic and professional audiences, and confronts
issues of colonialism and postcolonialism, economic development, and the religious
and political dynamics of the region. Titles in the series have earned an excellent
reputation for the originality of their scholarship and
their high production values.

Our editorial advisors includeAnthony P. D’Costa,
Nandini Gooptu, Christophe Jaffrelot, David Ludden, Patrick Olivelle,
Raka Ray, Tirthankar Roy, Romila Thapar and John Zavos.

Women, Gender and Everyday
Social Transformation in India

Edited by
Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anne Waldrop

Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2014
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2014 Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anne Waldrop editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters © individual contributors

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN­13: 978 1 78308 269 8 (Hbk)
ISBN­10: 1 78308 269 0 (Hbk)

Cover image courtesy of Dagrun Kyte Gjøstein.

This title is also available as an ebook.

Acknowledgments

C

O

Women and Gender in a Changing India
Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anne Waldrop

PART I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

PART II

Chapter Seven

N

TEN

TS

WORK, TECHNOLOGY, ASPIRATIONS

Today’s ‘Good Girl’: The Women behind India’s
BPO Industry
Reena Patel

Gender, Intersectionality and Smartphones in
Rural West Bengal
Sirpa Tenhunen

The Introduction of Electricity in the Sundarban Islands:
Conserving or Transforming Gender Relations?
Tanja Winther

Changing Consumption and the Negotiation of
Gender Roles in Kerala
Harold Wilhite

Gender, Work and Social Change: Return
Migration to Kerala
Berit Helene Vandsemb

Showtime and Exposures in New India:
The Revelations of Lucky Farmhouse
Nicol Foulkes and Stig Toft Madsen

DEMOCRACY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE

Gender and Democratization: The Politics of
Two Female Grassroots Activists in New Delhi
Stein Sundstøl Eriksen and Anne Waldrop

vii

1

21

33

47

63

75

89

105

vi

WOMEN, GENDER AND EvERYDAY SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

PART III

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

The Reproductive Body and the State: Engaging
with the National Rural Health Mission in Tribal Odisha
Arima Mishra and Sidsel Roalkvam

A veiled Change Agent: The ‘Accredited Social
Health Activist’ in Rural Rajasthan
Dagrun Kyte Gjøstein

Disciplining Gender and Gendering Discipline:
Women’s Studies in Contemporary India
Mallarika Sinha Roy

ASSERTIONS AND ACTIVISM

New Subalterns? Feminist Activism in an Era
of Neoliberal Development
Srila Roy

Family, Femininity, Feminism: ‘Structures of Feeling’
in the Articulation of Men’s Rights
Romit Chowdhury

Women’s Activism in the Singur Movement, West Bengal
Kenneth Bo Nielsen

The Women’s Question and Indian Maoism
Lipika Kamra

Caste and Class in Gendered Religion: Dalit Women
in Chennai’s Slums
Karin Kapadia

About the Editors and Contributors

123

139

157

175

189

203

219

235

251

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors would like to thank the Norwegian Forum for Development Research
(NFU) for opening the doors of its 2012 annual conference in Oslo to our workshop on
‘Transforming Gender in Contemporary India’, where the idea for this volume was first
aired. We are grateful to the participants at the workshop for their valuable contributions
and input. While many of the chapters in this book were drafted for the NFU workshop,
some authors joined the process in its later phases. We are grateful for their efforts, which
have enabled us to secure a wider regional coverage. Special thanks are due to Pamela
Price for moderating and stimulating the discussion at the workshop over two days in late
November. We also wish to express our gratitude to the Centre for Development and
the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo, Norway, and to Oslo and Akershus
University College, Norway, for the financial support extended to the project. Lastly, we
thank Tej P. S. Sood, Rob Reddick and Brian Stone at Anthem Press for their efficiency
and kind encouragement along the way.

WOMEN AND GENDER IN
A CHANGING INDIA

Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anne Waldrop

The pace of socioeconomic transformation in India over the past two and a half decades
has been formidable. In this volume we are concerned with examining how these
transformations have played out at the level of everyday life to influence the lives of
Indian women, and gender relations more broadly. The 15 chapters in Ge, erndWenoma dn
Everyday Social Transformation in India eosngehoei ntgyo fdea riyvvceernoofcsnart yrotam
churnings as undercurrents that play out well below the radar screen of the national and
international media, and beyond the realm of the spectacular. To analyse these everyday
transformatory churnings our authors look closely and ethnographically at a diversity of
everyday ‘sites of change’ (Rao et al. 1996) in which macrostructural processes of social
transformation interface with everyday lifeworlds to generate new contestations and
contradictions that impinge directly on the everyday lives of ordinary Indian women, and
on the relations between genders. In doing so, they combine to identify the ambiguous,
contradictory and contested coexistence of discrepant gendered norms, values and visions
in a society caught up in wider processes of social transformation. They also provide us
with some cause for cautious optimism. Thus, while much of the current debate on
women and social change in India is, for very good reasons, dominated by the pessimism
triggered by the apparent increase in brutal sexualized violence against women, and the
very low child sex ratio that makes India ‘a terrible place for girls’ (Reddy 2012; see also
Jha et al. 2006; John 2011), the chapters in iclaT arsnofmrtaion WnemoeG ,rednnd ave EdarySoy
in India 02 ot 01 tsap eh Te.urctpiy orctaridoctnna dti empose co mornt apaiave years h
seen an increasing number of women moving out of the domestic domain and into
the ‘public’ domains of education, work and politics (Reddy 2012); female literacy has
gone up; more women pursue higher education and are an increasingly common sight
on buses, in cafes, markets and other public spaces in the big cities; new and affordable
communication technologies blur the gendered boundaries between the private and the
public; there is greater participation of women in economic activity in the cities; the
large number of women elected to village and municipal councils across the country give
women a permanent political voice; there is a strong women’s movement; and in some
states women now ‘outvote’ the men. These changes, we argue in this book, are deeply
implicated in everyday lives and have had a considerable, if contradictory, impact on
how Indian women and men live, work and dream.

2

WOMEN, GENDER AND EvERYDAY SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

We have organized the 15 chapters in nioatrmfonsra TaloSicad yevyrdnE er aGenden, Wom
in India ormeedDncuarc yt eerht h lacipos:ngdieaor W1) (cenh,kT ,yA logoatiospir(2) ns;
and the Developmental State; and (3) Assertions and Activism. The key questions that
we address include: How does women’s ability to participate in an increasingly globalized
and volatile Indian labour market alter the terrain upon which gender relations are
negotiated and organized? How does the entry of new technologies into everyday­life
domains alter the relationship between men and women, and between the private and
the public? How do global cultural flows impinge on local imagina