Suchergebnisse

An ethnographic study of a community of shoemakers and their transformations under India's economic liberalisation

Scholarly accounts of children of the urban poor in South Asia often decry the exploitative conditions of child labour — the harsh and debilitating environmental conditions. At the same time, these accounts treat young people merely as victims and consequently leave out the felt experiences of working-class children and youth. Based on fieldwork among a marginalized leather worker community in an urban neighbourhood in India, this article aims to go beyond countering homogenizing perspectives and the challenge to the exploitation narrative. In doing so, I examine their specificity through ethnographic accounts of the ways in which young people actively construct their own identities, and reinterpret and negotiate adult notions of labour, caste, and community solidarity. Significantly these perspectives help us to comprehend the nature of youth discontent towards their traditional occupation. I analyse their discontent with the general declining employment opportunities in a globalizing Indian economy. Focusing on the youth cultures in the neighbourhood, I explore the conflicts within and between genders and generations emanating from the changing economic conditions.

Globalization of the Indian economy has dramatically influenced social life in India. The expansion of the middle class is said to have occurred as a consequence of this process. Based on ethnographic research among lower-middle-class families in West Bengal, India, the author examines the apparent paradox between women's positive perceptions of empowerment and the overall negative impact of structural adjustment policies on women. Many scholars argue that globalization has been detrimental to women due to growing structural gender inequalities, but many respondents identify greater opportunities to challenge preexisting patriarchal norms through the role models available in the globalized media. While there are increasing inequalities for households, women do not consider these to be gender disadvantages, emphasizing instead the opportunities for greater independence. The author pays particular attention to the confluence of the prowomen consumer discourses of the global market with earlier developmentalist notions of the public role of women.

This paper explores the centrality of gender in the construction of minority identities. We adopt a comparative perspective to analyze its significance in the contexts of internal and international migration within the Asia-Pacific region, the former being within contiguous parts of West Bengal, India by the Rabi Das and the latter from the mountains of Laos to Tasmania, Australia by Hmong refugees. In both cases, gender relations are fundamental to the process of identity construction. Nevertheless, the histories of minority status and the strategies adopted by men and women as they construct, re-construct and resist identities vary in the two diverse contexts. We focus on exploring the role of women's resistance and pro-active involvement in the restructuring of identity. Through an analysis of the intersection of ethnicity, gender and class in the construction of minority identities we highlight the need to firstly, avoid essentialist ways of defining gender and ethnic identity, and secondly to examine structural constraints and agency among minority women.

This book responds to the need to explore the multitude of interconnected factors causing displacements that compel people to move within their homelands or traverse various borders in the contemporary world that is characterised by extensive and rapid movements of people. It addresses this need by bringing together historical and contemporary accounts and critical examinations of the displaced, by articulating the commonalities in their lived experiences. It accomplishes the task of charting a new path in displacement studies by offering a number of studies from interdisciplinary and diverse methodological approaches comprising ethnographic and qualitative research and literary interpretations to emphasise that although the forms and conditions of mobility are highly divergent, individual experiences of displacement and placelessness offer a critical challenge to the artificial categorisations of people's movements. Each chapter adds insights into the different configurations of displacement and placement, and offers fresh interpretations of migration and dislocation in today's rapidly changing world. The contributors critically examine a variety of displacement processes and experiences in the context of war, tourism, neoliberal policies of development, and the impact of various agro-forestry policies. They focus on a range of countries, enabling a thorough comparative analysis in terms of scope and range of examples and methods of analysis. This book makes an original contribution to the growing body of literature on displacement, and will appeal to a wide readership including advanced undergraduates, and graduate students and professors in disciplines such as human geography, development studies, sociology and anthropology, regional studies and comparative impact assessment

This book explores the multitude of interconnected factors causing displacements that compel people to move within their homelands or traverse various borders It brings together historical and contemporary accounts and critical examinations of the displaced and articulates the commonalities in their lived experiences. It accomplishes the task of charting a new path in displacement studies by offering a number of studies from interdisciplinary and diverse methodological approaches.

"This book discusses and analyses both the economic and cultural sides to globalisation in India, providing much-needed data in relation to several dimensions including the changing costs of living; household expenditure, debt and consumerism; employment and workplace restructuring gender relations and girls' education; global media and satellite television; and the significance of English in a globalising India."--Jacket