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Based on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork (September 2012-August 2013) in a village in Baghpat district located in the western part of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), the thesis compares the lived experiences of marriage of women in what I describe as regional marriage (RM) with women in cross-regional marriage (CRM). RMs are marriages that conform to caste and community norms (caste endogamy, gotrā [clan] and village/territorial exogamy) and are negotiated within a limited geographical region, i.e., the state. CRMs are those between men in north India and women from the southern, eastern and north-eastern parts of the country. Such marriages cross caste, linguistic and state boundaries with the marriage distance exceeding 1000 kms. CRMs also differ from RMs with regard to their modes of arrangement and the payments involved. They result from two sets of factors – one operating at bride-sending regions (mainly poverty) and the other at bride-receiving regions (masculine sex ratios and the difficulties some men have in achieving “eligibility” for marriage). NGO and journalistic accounts and some academic work has focused on CRMs: being a consequence only of masculine sex ratios and bride shortages; deviating from north Indian marriage norms; involving the “sale” and “purchase” of poor women from poor districts and states; and CRBs’ low status and lack of agency in receiving communities. This research aims to interrogate the moral panic surrounding the “plight” of CRBs. The thesis begins by contextualising CRM by exploring the factors that lead some (UP) men of particular castes to seek brides from other states and those that influence the migration of women over long-distances for marriages. It examines the process of negotiation entailed in making a RM and a CRM – the role of matchmakers, marriage payments and the rituals regarded as necessary to make a marriage “legitimate”. The thesis then focuses on the question of lived experiences of marriage by examining different aspects of regional brides’ (RB) and cross-regional brides’ (CRB) everyday lives – what the process of adjustment in a new (marital) home means for women when they leave their natal homes to live in their husbands’ homes and villages, the work that married women do, their relationships with other women in their marital villages, their relationships with their husbands and with their natal kin. Married women’s lives are embedded in various power dynamics and this research aims to address how factors such as caste, class, religion and age/years of marriage shape women’s post-marital experiences, in addition to their regional origins. This ethnographic study also attempts to outline issues specific to CRBs, particularly discrimination, belonging and incorporation within a culturally and linguistically different context, as well as the intergenerational implications of these marriages in terms of the (caste) status, rights and marriages of children of cross-regional couples. This research departs from existing studies on CRM as it attempts to understand postmarital experiences through a comparison with RM. Such an approach makes it possible to recognise similarities in the lived experiences of RBs and CRBs that enables a more nuanced understanding of the gendering of intimate/marital relationships in contemporary rural India within a context of caste inequalities and poverty.

This research offers permeable Spirit ecclesiology as a viable way forward for the churches in the context of the challenges in North India. Broadly, the challenges of the church in North India are twofold: one, to be an Indian Christian church amidst the plural religio-cultural context; second, to be in solidarity with the struggles of the marginalised. In other words, the church arguably ought to be relational with other communities and rooted in the North Indian context; on the other, it should critically and distinctly witness for Christ as a community of liberation in the context of the struggles of the marginalised. Thus, the church in North India arguably needs a relational-distinctive dialectics to address the challenges. This calls for a church with permeable borders to uphold the above in tension. I show that such dialectics can be upheld if ecclesiology in North India is construed from a pneumatological perspective with a Christological dimension. In dialogue with both Western and Indian theologians I show that a permeable Spirit ecclesiology is a viable way forward for the churches in North India.

This work is concerned with the ways m which status is manifested, determined and altered within the Hindustani musical world of North India. This enquiry is undertaken by investigating two seemingly distinct, yet profoundly intertwined parts of North Indian classical music - the Hindustani violin and the significance of gender distinctions within Hindustani music. The 'stories' of both the Hindustani violin and of women as public performers of Hindustani classical music are inextricably tied to the larger paths of colonialism and nationalism, as they have manifested in India over the past century. At the same time, a deeper understanding of these two subjects is found in an engagement with the individuals who, through their personal actions and endeavors, have sought to shift their status within Hindustani music, thereby changing the Hindustani musical world in the process. This work is therefore grounded in the musical and social knowledge of the Hindustani violinist Kala Ramnath. Kala-ji's innovative violin technique, insights into gender differentiation within the Hindustani musical world, and articulated identity as a female Hindustani instrumentalist provide new understandings of how music, words, and personal action can affect a performer's relationship with the sociomusical world that she inhabits.

Background: A significant amount of research has previously been conducted in developing countries such as India, to improve women’s sexual and reproductive health. However, women living in North Indian slums still have poor access to proper sexual and reproductive healthcare. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the published literature to create a consolidated understanding of the key barriers faced by women in slum populations when accessing sexual and reproductive health services in Northern India. Methods: A scoping review was carried out following the five stages outlined in Arksey and O’Malley’s framework. Five online databases (MEDLINE, Global Health, Ovid Emcare, Embase, and Web of Science) were searched. An interpretive thematic analysis was conducted to extract meaningful themes from the data using the Conceptual Framework for Reproductive Empowerment developed by the International Center for Research on Women Results: In total, 28 articles were identified to be incorporated into the scoping review. The results of this study were grouped according to the CFFRE to understand how they compared in regard to women’s reproductive empowerment. This scoping review found reproductive empowerment was significantly hindered by women lacking a proper education and understanding of SRH services, lack of employment and financial resources. Additionally, women’s husbands and mothers-in-laws were barriers to contraceptive use. Finally, poor interactions with healthcare providers and the healthcare system, and systemic factors such as behaviours in treatment seeking, son preference and religion were barriers to accessing SRH services. Conclusion: This scoping review investigated the barriers faced by women living in slum populations in Northern India to accessing SRH services. The results of this study contribute to the literature by identifying areas that require improvement to SRH services for women living in slums, and will be integral to implementing strategies and interventions to allow better access to SRH services in the future. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / A significant amount of research has previously been conducted in India, to improve women’s sexual and reproductive health. However, women living in North Indian slums still have poor access to proper sexual and reproductive healthcare. Therefore, this study investigated the key barriers faced by women in slum populations when accessing sexual and reproductive health services in Northern India. A review of previous studies was conducted by searching five electronic databases and a total 28 articles were included into the review. This study found that women lacking a proper education and understanding of SRH services, lack of employment and financial resources, and women’s husbands and mothers-in-laws were barriers to SRH services. Finally, poor interactions with healthcare providers and the healthcare system, and systemic factors such as behaviours in treatment seeking, son preference, and religion were also barriers to accessing SRH services.

Scholarship has tended to focus exclusively on connections of Qawwali, a north Indian devotional practice and musical genre, to religious practice. A focus on the religious degree of the occasion inadequately represents the participant’s active experience and has hindered the discussion of Qawwali in modern practice. Through the examples of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s music and an insightful BBC radio article on gender inequality this thesis explores the fluid musical exchanges of information with other styles of Qawwali performances, and the unchanging nature of an oral tradition that maintains sociopolitical hierarchies and gender relations in Sufi shrine culture. Perceptions of history within shrine culture blend together with social and theological developments, long-standing interactions with society outside of the shrine environment, and an exclusion of the female body in rituals. To better address Qawwali performances and their meanings, I foreground the perspectives of shrine social actors and how their thoughts reflect their community, its music, and gendered spaces. / text

Le ghunghat est une pratique du voile particulière à l’Inde du Nord. Il a pour singularité d’être non-confessionnel et peut être pratiqué par des femmes de toutes confessions religieuses, hindoues, musulmanes ou sikhes, mais pas par toutes les femmes. Il consiste pour une femme à baisser sur son visage le voile qu’elle porte sur sa tête devant certains individus parmi ses affins, mais jamais devant ses consanguins. Il est observé de façon inégale en fonction des castes, des classes, du niveau d’éducation, des lieux de résidence dans une grande partie de l’Inde du Nord, hormis au Pendjab, d’où il a disparu il y a une quinzaine d’années. Il renseigne sur la relation qu’une femme entretient avec les individus qui l’entourent. Sa manipulation donne à voir l’organisation sociale et familiale spécifique à l’Inde du Nord : mariage arrangé, résidence patrilocale en famille élargie, antagonisme et asymétrie de statuts entre les affins et les consanguins d’une femme, rapports hiérarchiques. Extension du corps de la femme, sa gestuelle en exprime les représentations, ainsi que l’esthétique et les rapports de genre. Le voile apparaît comme un « fait social total », révélant les rapports familiaux et sociaux en même temps que les représentations du corps de la femme, et s’insérant dans une pratique de couverture et d’enveloppement des corps et des objets qui renvoie au sacré. Une ethnologie du ghunghat permet de créer de nouveaux outils afin d’aborder les problématiques autour du voile dans d’autres espaces, en particulier en France, dans une perspective comparative. / Ghunghat is a veiling practice specific to North India. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is non religious, though it can be observed by women of all confessions, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh, but not by all women. The woman lowers the veil that rests on her head in front of certain individuals of her affines but never before her consanguines. It varies according to cast, social class, education level, places of residence in most of North India except in Punjab where it has disappeared about fifteen years ago. It gives information about the relationships that a woman has with the people around her. It reveals the social and family organization of the Nothern Indian subcontinent : arranged marriage, patrilocal residence in joint family, hierarchy, asymetry of status between wife givers and receivers. It can be seen as an extension of a woman’s body, thus informing about its representations, as well as aesthetics, and gender relations. The veil thus appears as a « total social fact » revealing the family and social relationships as well as the representations over the women’s bodies, where not only bodies but also objets are covered, especially in the context of sacredness. An ethnological study of ghunghat allows to create new tools in order to reconsider the undestanding of the veil in other contexts, in particular in the French context, through a comparative perspective.

Child rights, especially the right to health for children, is a concept of human development. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore the obstacles to gender equality in the right to healthcare for children under five years in East Champaran, Bihar, North India. Ten key informant interviews and nine focus group discussions with mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers were conducted to research the barriers of guardians to accessing healthcare for their children, including their root beliefs and choices, which causes health inequalities. It was found that a strong patriarchal tradition predominates in these communities in North India, which favour sons and disadvantages daughters in healthcare provision. Despite the existing child rights and human rights policies that have been legislated, in India traditional practices that discriminate against female children remain dominant in the society, and limit development in East Champaran, Bihar, North India. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)