Culture plays a significant role in defining how alcohol is consumed and in determining the attitudes of the nonconsuming population toward the consumer. While the mechanics of the relationship between alcohol consumption and culture have been extensively investigated in the industrialized world, there is a paucity of studies concerning developing nations. This study contributes to available data by examining in detail alcohol consumption within one North Indian caste group, the Rajputs. The Rajputs have played a unique role in Indian history, first as conquering invaders and later as martial rulers sworn to defend Hindu India. In the subject village, which is over 80 percent Rajput, they are the principal landholders and control the power structure. A survey of a variety of jatis within the village also confirmed their reputation as heavy drinkers. Investigation of the Rajput in relation to other jatis revealed significant differences in childrearing practices, family structure, marriage, religiosity and sex role differentiation between the two groups. This was seen to result in a different basic personality being evident in Rajputs and non-Rajputs. The Rajputs' ongoing ties to their marital past were found to dictate that Rajput males express their martiality by repressing a broad range of intense emotions, including fear, loneliness and despair, and that they restrict the expression of intimacy in personal relationships. Family life, childrearing, marriage and sexual relationships were all subordinated to this overriding concern. Alcohol plays a crucial role in this cultural scheme in that it is viewed as a culturally-sanctioned "escape valve," its consumption resulting in "disinhibiting" behavior not usually associated with the stoic Rajput personality. Evidence of this assigned role was seen in the high associations of alcohol consumption with the release of violence and sexual passions and its function as a social lubricant providing the means for the individual Rajput to function in social situations in which he feels uncomfortable. The sociocultural roles assigned to the consumption of alcohol in Rajput culture were found to bear a striking resemblance to those found in North American culture, specifically in the United States.

published_or_final_version / Fine Arts / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Housing crisis in India -- What is vernacular? -- Vernacular as timeless -- Vernacular aesthetics : the legacy of craft -- Disengagement of vernacular from architectural practice in India -- Revisiting architectural academics -- Conclusion : applicability of vernacular studies -- Vernacular studies at Auroville Earth Institute, Auroville, India -- Low cost building technologies at Auroville Earth Institute, India -- Vernacular architecture : exemplary projects -- The joy of building. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Accompanying CD-ROM contains additional copy of chapters 8-10. / Department of Architecture

This thesis postulates the annihilation of the poor as the authorised end of development. This circumstance, I contend, is an effect of the entanglement – that is, the mutual affectability (Barad 2007) – of the human and capital as descriptors of ethical and economic value, respectively. Accordingly, I suggest that the annihilation of the poor by capital under the sign of development is authorised as the preservation of value. I designate this as the postcolonial capitalist condition. The argument unfolds through encounters with three sites that have become metonymic with destruction wrought by development: the state response to peasant revolt against land expropriation in Nandigram, the Bhopal gas leak, and the recently emergent surrogacy market. I offer these as different instantiations of the annihilation of the poor, each of which gives lie to the recuperative myth of development. Here, annihilation proceeds by leaving a material trace upon the body. I follow this trace to argue the indispensability of the body in performing the ideological work of development – that is, to preserve an idealised appearance as human through the eradication of the poor that appear as subaltern – even as it establishes itself as an emancipatory truth. Thus, in this thesis I offer an analysis of the violence of capital not as socio-materially imposed (per Karl Marx) but rather as an onto-materially authorised (following Georges Bataille). As such, I seek to explicate the differential mattering of bodies – as both, appearance and significance – under development.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68). / The study evaluates the three alternatives identified by the (National) Planning Commission for housing the Urban Poor in India: Upgrading, site and services, and housing. The basis for evaluation is the relationship of the cost of development to the cost of each of the components in development and the number of beneficiaries. The framework for evaluation is proposed as a model to assist: 1 ) Project designers to identify the relative importance of the various design parameters in development and to indicate quickly to the concerned agencies the impact of standards and regulations, 2) State and local agencies to determine the affordable standards, and 3) Allocation of available National resources by choosing affordable alternatives for housing the urban poor. The application of the model is illustrated for Ahmedabad. Conclusions are drawn from the application and for a specific set of assumptions. The assumptions governing the values assigned to the parameters of the model are based on case studies and design studies for three low-income settlements in Ahmedabad. / by Rajagopalan M. Palamadai. / M.S.

No description available.

Mukti Ashram is a rehabilitation center in north India that works with ex-child laborer boys. Fieldwork completed at the ashram in 1997-98 centered around the issue of the organization's attempt to enact social change through the engineering of community within the ashram's walls. Several fundamental processes that contribute to this goal have been identified: the construction and presentation of personal narratives which are ideally encased in a common structure; the encompassment of heterogeneity through careful focus on a singular point of commonality; and, the creation of national and transnational ties of horizontal solidarity, literal and "imagined." The nature of the activists' intervention, which becomes codified in the dominant ethos of the institution, presents an internal contradiction that is essentially unresolvable. It is found that power is always to some extent fought using those same tools of the powerful. Though in this case their goal of empowering the boys is to some extent compromised, such attempts still constitute a positive influence. Mukti Ashram's example demonstrates both the constraints and opportunities that may be met by organizations that work with subjugated groups. / Graduation date: 2000

This thesis outlines dominant ideologies and practices that affect women's authority in the urban social milieu of north India. Theories that consider the causes of social stratification by gender as well as social movement patterns are useful for understanding the durability of gender roles. The utility of these theories for understanding the patterns of social organization in India is discussed. Additionally, I report on interviews I conducted with police, non-governmental organization founders and individuals who are involved in and affected by women's issues, in order to outline potential variations in existing practices. In urban India, traditional and contemporary social practices meld into a proscribed, often volatile cultural setting in which women's roles are stringently defined. In the city of New Delhi, reports of "bride burnings" or murders attributed to family conflicts over dowry have surfaced during the last decades of the 2O century, and resulting protest movements have sparked governmental and grass-roots level reforms. Extreme cases of violence against women are indicative of troublesome cultural ideologies, including the social and economic devaluation of women. Urbanization has intensified financial negotiations in marriage alliances, and a woman's social worth is increasingly measured according to her market value. A Women's Movement comprised of various interest groups has contributed to the dialog on the social climate of north India, and feminist advocates have sought to redefine women's roles. Within the hierarchical structure of the Hindu culture, concepts of kinship and community take precedence over personal agendas, and social action is thus driven by family values as well as movement ideologies. State policies designed to address social ills such as domestic violence are ineffectual because they do not address the extant causes of abuse or constraints against women. Independent organizations and activist groups have recognized the need to work within traditional norms in order to advance women's movement objectives, despite the restrictions inherent within patriarchy. These tactics risk accomplishing little social change, and may at times perpetuate practices that limit women's activity. / Graduation date: 2000

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Government and Public Administration

No description available.