The thesis is based on data collected during a twenty months period of fieldwork undertaken in Calcutta, India. The main concern is with the effects of processes of urbanisation on middle-class women's lives in a heterogeneous neighbourhood. While focusing on members of the Bengali Hindu majority comparative material drawn from data referring to the Bengali Christian and Marwari communities is incorporated. Initially the socio-economic history of different castes and communities and in particular the Subarnabanik Bene (goldsmiths and sellers of gold) occupational and ritual patterns as well as educational standards are investigated. In the following chapters the effects of socio-economic change on marriage patterns (love- and arranged marriages) and their evaluation as well as various types of marriage transactions undertaken are described and interpreted. In the course of the remaining chapters household structures, women's work in the domestic sphere and female employment as well as redefined concepts relating to segregation and seclusion are analysed. Throughout the thesis various aspects of women's ritual activities, reproductive behaviour and kinship relations are investigated in a rapidly changing urban setting. Within the given context concepts of gender- and community-identity are explored and the influence of long-term and recent economic changes are analysed. Different meanings of phenomena like dowry, seclusion or the joint family and ideologies employed to legitimise the same are described with reference to traditional and modern practice. The domestic sphere identified with women and kinship is interpreted as linked to concepts of status within the urban setting where caste and community affiliation are among a number of defining features of group affiliation such as class and regional origin. Relations between gender and community are explored within the context of the locality and its history. As an overall hypothesis the flexibility and modern content of assumedly traditional concepts and practices is demonstrated.

Access to abstract restricted until 05/2015. / Literature review -- The politics of urban reformation : public interest litigation and heritage -- A market for corruption : rumor and the arts of resistance. / Access to thesis restricted until 05/2015.

Purpose: To understand through explorations of the experiences of HIV positive individuals whether these individuals experience stigma in relation to HIV/AIDS and how it has impacted their lives and that of their families. Design: Qualitative study used ethnographic techniques (interviews, questionnaires, informal conversations, observation, field notes) to collect data over a four-month period. Setting: Data was collected from nine districts in the northern, central, and southern regions of the state of Kerala, India. Participants: Shared their perspectives on HIV related stigma (n=49 total). Of the 38 participants interviewed, 12 were HIV positives, 19 were HIV positives who also worked or volunteered with HIV positive networks (known as positive speakers), 2 were caregivers of HIV positives, and 5 were key informants involved with community organizations providing services to HIV positives. Informal conversations with 11 unaffected were also utilized. Findings were organized into four themes. (1) Anti-stigma/prevention strategies such as positive living and positive speaking offered positive speakers unique challenges and opportunities as they were called upon to be the face and voice of HIV (2) Contrary to expectations that formal education which also included awareness about HIV could increase one’s knowledge and subsequently dispel ignorance and stigma, the findings pointed out how knowledge itself is a resource that allowed stigma to unfold along existing social hierarchies. (3) Unconscious prejudices about physical appearances influenced perceptions of HIV risk, and a stigmatized identity waxed and waned with a change in physical appearance as the HIV positive oscillated between illness and health. (4) “Immoral behaviour” as the cause of HIV infection entered into family/caregiver decisions regarding the use of family resources for the treatment and care of the HIV positive member. Gender and social class also impinged on family decisions in numerous ways. Conclusions: This research project has highlighted the need to develop a more nuanced understanding of HIV related stigma that extends beyond the current conceptualization of stigma as “ignorance” or lack of awareness about modes of HIV transmission. Refining current understandings of HIV related stigma could guide research, policy, and practice.

No description available.

This study focuses on four famines (1837-8,1860-1,1868-9,1896-7) that afflicted the North Western Provinces and Awadh, the present day Uttar Pradesh, but no longer including the hill districts. This study looks at the discourse, responses to and perceptions of famines by certain groups in NWPandO society. The study argues that while famines were disasters for some sections of affected people, they proved significantly beneficial to others. It argues that long- standing social, economic and political imbalances caused the impact of famines to fall on already vulnerable and poor sections of society, while the rich and powerful derived important political, economic, social and religious benefits. The policies abetting these and the mechanisms by which these benefits were derived are examined. Besides poverty, fragmentation and breaking up of community and family structures and more importantly, lack of political accessibility and inadequate political representation added to the woes of the victims. The perceptions, discourse and responses of famine victims have been detailed. At the same time the use of power and political accessibility to derive important gains- political, economic and religious is emphasized. The activities of beneficiary groups extended famines in space and time. Their perception and responses to famine have been highlighted, and the varying fortunes of victims and beneficiaries compared and contrasted. Relief policy largely failed to alleviate even immediate famine distress. A generous and liberal relief policy taking into account the needs and cultural susceptibilities of the affected people was required. But such a policy was not evolved even till the end of the nineteenth century as strategic, bureaucratic, cultural and ideological priorities took precedence over the sufferings of the needy. Officials largely ignored or failed to take into account that relief was being exploited for important economic, political and religious gains. The issues and problems discussed in the present thesis are relevant for modern times, especially in the case of India. If modern- day relief policies remedy these shortcomings and adopt realistic long-term measures to redress socio- economic and political imbalances that afflict society in India, then the negative impact of famines can be contained.

This thesis is a comparative study of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981) and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy (1993). It compares the novels' representations of the postcolonial Indian nation-state and of the conflict between secular and religious perspectives in the Indian public sphere. The novels are interpreted as responses to specific moments of crisis in the so-called "secular consensus" of the Indian state: Midnight's Children to the Emergency of 1975, A Suitable Boy to the rise of the Hindu right in the early 1990s. The aim of this study is to establish secularism as an interpretative concept in South Asian literature in English. Each chapter examines different aspects of the texts in relation to secularism. The first chapter outlines two different theoretical positions, Seth's "rationalist" and Rushdie's "radical" secularism. The second examines the question of minority identity in the two novels. The third explores the different narrative structures that shape their ideas of Indian citizenship. The fourth compares their differing versions of India's national past. The fifth interrogates the status of English as a secular language in the Indian context by examining the interaction between English and Indian vernaculars in the two texts. The dialogic form of the novel has been appropriated by postcolonial Indian writers in English in order to stage contrasting religious and secular worldviews. This dialogism, it is suggested, may offer the possibility of opening up the public sphere to different modes of communication not exclusively defined by rationalism.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this dissertation is to establish the extent to which women's membership in self-help groups and their involvement in various activities of these groups, with particular reference to Micro Credit programs, impacted their socio-economic empowerment. The objective is to study the socio-economic empowerment impact factors (evidences) in women members of micro-credit self-help groups in rural India upon the self, the family and the community. / Data selected for analyses was based on an operational model of empowerment that encompassed indicators of purported empowerment at the personal, family and community levels. The working hypotheses in quantitative analyses are that there are significant differences in income, savings, assets, expenditure, basic amenities, as well as attitudinal and behavioral changes in the rural women before and after their group membership. / The qualitative interviews helped to assess the life conditions of the women as the process of empowerment before and after their participation in self-help group micro-credit program. The qualitative interviews were to corroborate the veracity of reported progress from the survey to shed some light on the specific factors that contributed to their empowerment in line with their present quality of life at personal, family and community levels. Hence, the impact of the program is measured as the difference in the magnitude of a given parameter between the pre-and post-SHG situations by comparing the life condition of members before joining the self-help group to their condition three years after joining.

Cultural identity today has become deterritorialized. As mass migration, mobility and interconnectivity between peoples and regions have increased, connections to geographical roots have loosened. People today are enmeshed in multiple spatial contexts, their past and present associations all contribute to shaping an identity that reaches beyond territorial boundaries. Being simultaneously a part of and apart from a multitude of places allows for identity to be situational and hybrid, between categorization. To examine the fluidity of identity and its relationship to the built environment, this investigation focuses specifically around the Indian diaspora, tracing the relationship between people and place within their homeland, through transition, and after settling in a new hostland. While definitions of nationalism typically involve identifying ethnic commonalities within a state, the Indian nation unites in a celebration of disparity. As India developed as a home to numerous languages, social hierarchies and belief systems, it has struggled to form a coherent national narrative. The overseas Indian community amplifies this dilemma as they are confronted with further multiplicity in a foreign environment. The result is a gap that prevents the Indian diaspora from fully connecting to both homeland and hostland, situating them in a space of the in-between. Rather than attempting to bridge this gap, this investigation chronicles the reasons for its existence and offers an observatory as a space in the built environment where the gulf between cultural identities can be explored.