"Changing Patterns of Family Life in Urban Gujarat" is primarily a descriptive analysis of the family lives of twelve employed Indian women. Data for the study are derived from formal and informal interviews conducted in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, between June 1968 and April 1969. Three areas of family life are examined: traditions of caste and sect, life-style, and intrafamilial relationships. For each area, the women's present behaviour and beliefs are compared to those evident in their recollections of childhood experiences, and to the behaviour and beliefs prescribed by Gujar-ati tradition. It is hypothesized that the changes in family life made by the employed women are congruent with the values and attitudes of modern individuals, values and attitudes which are said to be indicated by a dynamic and pragmatic approach to life, an individualistic view of self and others, and a cosmopolitan orientation. Analysis reveals that changes have occurred in the three areas of family life. Traditions of caste and sect pertaining to daily routine and life-cycle events have been abbreviated or omitted, while those pertaining to calendrical events are observed and some all-caste celebrations have been universalized and elaborated upon. In their life-style, the respondents are more mobile than were their parents, and more inclined to reside in suburban areas and in socially heterogeneous areas. The amount of living space has declined, while the number and variety of material possessions has increased. The respondents, their husbands, and their children spend less time in the home than did members of the respondents' families of orientation, but they spend more time together as a family. In their intrafamilial relationships, the respondents favour less hierarchical, more egalitarian modes of interaction. They follow traditional patterns of interaction if their relationship to a family member is strained or, in the case of husband's elders, if it is intermittent. But positive relationships within the household are characterized by reciprocal, relatively egalitarian behaviour. It is suggested that the reasons given by the respondents for the changes in family life are congruent with modern attitudes and values. Reasons given for several changes in traditions of caste and sect and in features of life-style indicate the operation of a dynamic, pragmatic approach to life or of a cosmopolitan orientation. Increased individualism is evident in the reasons given for other changes in tradition and life-style, and for changes in intrafamilial relationships. Women's employment appears to be an important factor influencing the direction of change, particularly in the area of traditions. Other variables such as the respondents' caste affiliation, type of marriage, household composition, and educational background are found to influence the extent of change. However, reason for employment does not appear significantly related to the direction or extent of change. The study is based on a small, atypical, and non-random sample of women. No major conclusions are reached, but the patterns of change and factors in change which are suggested raise questions for further research on a growing and influential element of India's population — that of the educated and employed woman. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The present work closely traces the emergence of a distinctively Gujarati political and cultural world by the fifteenth century, arguing that many of the political, administrative, cultural and religious institutions that are evident in modern Gujarat came into being when the region was unified by force and consensus under the Sultans of Gujarat. The western province of Gujarat with its extensive coastline became, from the eighth century, the hub of a vibrant network of trade that stretched from the Red Sea to Indonesia and over land to Central Asia and the borders of China. The ports and cities of Gujarat drew merchants, mercenaries, religious figures and fortune-seekers from the Arab world and neighbouring south Asian provinces. Gujarat' s general prosperity also attracted mass migrations of pastoralist groups from the north. Unlike previous studies that have tended to treat trade and politics as separate categories with distinct histories, the present research charts the evolving Gujarati political order by juxtaposing political control with networks of trade, religion and contestation over resources. Large parts of Gujarat were conquered in the late thirteenth century by the armies of the Turkic Sultans of Delhi. With the dissolution of the Delhi Sultanate in the late fourteenth century, the governor of Gujarat declared his sovereignty and inaugurated a line of independent Sultans of Gujarat who continued in power until defeated by the Mughal ruler Akbar in 1572. From the late twelfth century, Gujarat was the site of proselytising activities of various denominations of missionaries. By the fifteenth century, a wide variety of religious interests were competing for patrons, converts and resources. The highly evolved trading networks radiating out from Gujarat from the eighth century required pragmatic accommodation with successive political formations. Correspondingly, claimants to political power were heavily dependent upon merchants, traders and financiers for military supplies, and in return, offered the trading groups security and patronage. The constantly negotiated relationship between trade and politics was closely linked to the evolution of sects and castes, Hindu, Muslim and Jain. Trade and politics were increasingly organised and expressed in sectarian or community terms. In keeping with some recent literature, my studies suggest that community affiliations in this period were often negotiable and linked to changing status. The study ends in the late fifteenth century when the Portuguese arrived off the coast of Gujarat. Soon there were new alignments of identity and power as the pastoralist frontier politics of the previous period began to give way to settled Rajput courts, complete with bureaucracies, chroniclers and priests. The Sultans of Gujarat were now paramount in the region: wealthy patrons of merchants and religious figures, they were unrivalled in north India for their control of manpower, war animals and weaponry.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 437-462).

The management problem of allocating limited resources for conflicting habitat needs of 2 endangered species, (the wolf (<i>Canis lupus pallipes</i>) and the blackbuck (<i>Antelope cervicapra</i>)) at Velavadar National Park, Gujarat, India, was addressed with the aid of mathematical optimization models. Critical biological data essential for model formulation and management decisions were collected by field research from February 1988 to December 1990. The semi-arid grassland habitat was dominated by perennial grasses like <i>Dichanthium annulatum</I> and <i>Sporobolus virginicus</i>. The grassland system seems quite resilient to droughts and grazing. Above-ground production is primarily dependent on precipitation. Two-year rainfall sequence explained 960/0 of the variability in the peak above-ground plant biomass. Food habits of blackbuck were determined by lead animal studies and observations on wild blackbuck. Blackbuck relied primarily on grasslands to obtain food. The pods of the exotic shrub, <i>Prosopis juliflora</i>, comprised 10% of the diet and were considered to be important during the summers and drought years. Dry matter intake, as estimated from captive blackbuck feeding on natural forage, was cyclical, dropping in the summers and increasing during the monsoons and winters. Apparent digestibility and forage quality were extremely low in summers. Average annual dry matter intake was estimated at 86 gms/<i>kg</i> ^.075 of blackbuck per day. Relationships were developed for predicting forage quality from fecal ether extract and fecal nitrogen. The blackbuck population seemed to be in a dynamic equilibrium at about 1850 animals. Periodic droughts and floods cause major population declines. The population takes 4-5 years to recover from such catastrophic mortality. Life-table analysis done by aging jaws of dead blackbuck revealed a bimodal mortality pattern for males. Males between the ages of 7 to 9 years were at high risk of wolf predation during the rutting season. A population simulation model using a modified Leslie matrix approach estimated the probability of extinction during the next 50 years to be close to zero. The population was predicted to fluctuate between 1100 and 2800 individuals. / Ph. D.

Thesis. 1979. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: p. 80. / M.Arch.A.S.

Thesis. 1977. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : p. 108. / by Alka Vidyahar Chavda and Vidyahar Girdhar Chavda. / M.Arch.A.S.

This thesis uses a mixed methods approach to investigate the different levels of Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat (western India) in 2002 when at least a thousand Muslims were killed. An original dataset of killings is compiled to analyse macrospatial variation in the violence across towns and rural areas of Gujarat. Data collected from 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Ahmedabad city is used to investigate microspatial variation across three neighbourhoods with varying levels of violence.Macrospatial analysis discusses the link between political authority and its capacity to instigate ethnic violence as a response to electoral calculations and identifies the mechanisms by which violence against Muslims was orchestrated by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ethnographic findings demonstrate the importance of ecological strategies adopted by attackers and targets during the course of attack and urge a re-examination of the intuitive association of spatial proximity with greater interethnic contact. Findings also reveal methods of enforcement used by legitimate and illegitimate institutions of a peaceful slum neighbourhood in resolving commitment problems of cooperation. Finally, the thesis examines the aftermath of the violence, more specifically a political phenomenon of Muslims of Gujarat supporting the BJP nine years after the brutal violence.Methodologically, the main contribution of this thesis is in bridging the quantitative and ethnographic traditions in the sociology of ethnic violence to make possible the linking, and disentangling, of macrolevel risk factors associated with violence from microlevel factors. Findings of the thesis hopefully provide a better understanding of ethnic violence in multi-ethnic democracies and a roadmap of policy-making for India as it continues to struggle with ethnic strife.

This thesis draws on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork to examine the everyday lives of young people aged between 16 and 30 years in rural Gujarat, India. It is shaped around four standalone articles that examine the spatial aspects of young men and women's secondary and higher education, and employment strategies. Taken both individually and collectively, the articles employ a conceptual framework of relationality in order to critically examine the complexity of young people's everyday lives. Relationality crosses spatial scales, from the individual body though to intersecting with processes of globalization. My analysis interrogates these scalar connections within and across different spaces, and the ways in which these spaces produce, reinforce, and transform relations of power, difference, and identity. In doing so it makes a series of critical contributions to ongoing debates about educated unemployed youth, geographies of friendship, youth transitions and imagined futures, and young people's mobilities. The thesis reflects on "the everyday" as a locus of social change and continuity, focusing on a first generation of formally educated young men and women from socioeconomically marginalized Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Caste, and Scheduled Tribe populations in rural Gujarat. Among this demographic, and in part a consequence of ongoing structural transformations to India's education sector, families are increasingly prolonging the formal education of their offspring as they pursue projects of social reform. In a context where education manifestly cannot guarantee a smooth transition into secure employment, a relational approach that places an emphasis on the quality and nature of connections and relationships provides a valuable framework for understanding young people's lives. My work forwards three broader arguments in relation to this emergent generation of educated young people from marginalized communities. Firstly, I argue for greater empirical and theoretical attention to young people's movements within and across space in order to fully theorize age as a social relation. Related to this my analysis supports the case for a multi-sited methodological approach in order to locate young people within the significant social relations that shape their everyday lives. Secondly, the scale of the everyday offers productive insights into how the political and economic changes associated with liberalization in contemporary India are affecting marginalized populations. Rather than focusing on processes occurring within educational institutions, the thesis takes a broader focus to examine how young people conceive of, value, and mobilize their formal education in their daily lives. Finally, attention to both inter- and intra-generational relations as significant and influential to young people's everyday lives foregrounds the breadth of social relations that bear down upon the social, cultural, and economic aspirations of youth in contemporary rural India.

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2006. / Communication Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis. 1977. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaves 99-101. / by Anuradha B. Deolalikar. / M.C.P.