'A fist is stronger than five fingers': caste and dominance in rural north India

This paper explores the spatiality of caste and power in contemporary rural north India. I aim to introduce the social institution of caste to a non-specialist audience and illustrate how caste is changing. The paper draws upon Pierre Bourdieu's notions of social capital and habitus and the India-based research ofSrinivas (1955) andMendelsohn (1993). I argue that while caste as a religiously sanctioned system of resource transfer is in decline, caste organization and identity are important forms of social or symbolic capital for rural elites. Drawing on detailed empirical research in western Uttar Pradesh, I demonstrate the continuing importance of caste dominance in the reproduction of social inequality and relate caste to other axes of power.     

Outsourcing Patriarchy To and Within India: Intersectional and Decolonial Gender Politics Across Scales

Young caste-class privileged gender justice workers in Delhi navigate several relations of power—with Euro-American feminisms, and with less privileged feminisms and recipients of development work within India. Their experiences reveal that decolonial politics in India cannot be conceptualised without consideration of other axes of inequality including caste and religion. There is thus a need to broaden decolonial and intersectional analyses to include multiple spatial scales, from the transnational to the most granular interpretations of the local. By bringing intersectional analyses into greater dialogue with postcolonial feminist theory, this paper demonstrates that patterns of “outsourcing patriarchy” are observable at many scales, and that these patterns at different scales are co-produced, each in turn shaping the other. Such a framework also explains how young caste-class privileged gender justice workers outsource patriarchy and reproduce “mainstream” feminisms even as they seek to avoid doing so.     

Class,Caste, Gender,and the Materiality of Cement Houses in India

Recently, large parts of India and the global South have experienced a rapid transformation from mud to cement houses, which has been promoted by governments and cement companies for its positive impacts on household socioeconomic status and gender inequalities. But we know little else about how different communities are participating in house transformation. In this paper, I study the embodied and affective dimensions of house transformation in Himachal Pradesh, India. I argue that house transformation is also the transformation of traditional gender and caste identities into new middle-class identities which benefits some social groups, like upper-caste women and Dalit men, but not others like Dalit women along intersectional lines. My work extends literature in infrastructure studies and urban political ecology by highlighting how the materiality of infrastructures interacts with everyday dimensions of difference to reproduce the marginalisation of historically oppressed groups along intersectional lines of class, caste, and gender.     

Examining the Structure of Opportunity and Social Mobility in India: Who Becomes an Engineer?

Rising inequality alongside rapid economic growth reinforces the need to examine patterns of social mobility in India. Are children from less well‐off sections also able to rise to higher‐paying positions, newly created by the growing economy, or are these positions mainly accessible to established elites? Powered in particular by the software industry, no sector has grown as fast as engineering in India. Examining the social origins of students at a range of engineering colleges, including higher‐ and lower‐ranked ones, provides a useful lens for understanding how the new opportunities have availed different social segments. These results provide some grounds for optimism: women, scheduled castes, and sons and daughters of agriculturists have improved upon historical trends. However, the rural–urban divide remains deep: the more rural one is, the lower are one's chances of getting into any engineering college. Multiple simultaneous handicaps — being poor and rural or scheduled caste and rural — reduce these chances to virtually zero. Improving education quality together with better information provision and more accessible career advice are critical for making opportunity more equitable.     

Rural–Urban Migration and Gender Disparities in Child Healthcare in China and India

This article assesses the impact of rural–urban migration on gender disparities in children's access to healthcare in China and India. Much research has shown widespread discrimination against girl children in both countries, including in health investments, contributing to the well‐known problem of Asia's ‘missing’ women. Much less clear is the impact of the massive rural–urban migration now occurring in China and India on discrimination against daughters. Migration is usually thought to have a positive effect on child health, because of improved access to healthcare facilities, but this is not necessarily equally beneficial for both sons and daughters. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork with rural migrant families in Shenzhen (China) and Mumbai (India), this article argues that where migration improves access to healthcare, it may increase rather than decrease the gender gap in treatment of child illness in the short term, as resources are concentrated on the treatment of sons. Furthermore, it is not the case that rural–urban migration necessarily leads to better access to healthcare even for sons: some forms of migration may actually have an overall negative effect on child health outcomes. For these two reasons, development strategies focusing on large‐scale rural–urban migration should not be seen as a short‐term solution to problems of gender inequity in child health.     

Constructing Social Capital: Self‐Help Groups and Rural Women's Development in India

The success of the group approach in rural micro‐finance among women has inspired the tendency to look at all networking as essentially good and desirable in rural community development, without acknowledging the entrenched caste, class, ethnic and religious hierarchies that lead to diversities among women. Government schemes designed for poverty alleviation among rural women tend to be influenced by concepts and models that have been successful elsewhere, but do not take into account the diversities of situations at the local level. Internationally popular catchwords are used indiscriminately without questioning how these concepts can work effectively in the specific local context. This paper examines why some ‘self‐help groups’ fail by using the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) experience in India. The empirical survey was done over a period of two years in Burdwan, a relatively rich agricultural tract located in eastern India. We argue that whilst the ‘group’ has inherent benefits, it must never be allowed to become the paradigm in developmental policies for women.     

Births,Infants and Children: An Econometric Portrait of Women and Children in India

This article undertakes an econometric analysis of the constellation of factors that serve to determine some outcomes with respect to demography and to schooling in India. These are: the numbers of pregnancies, live births and infant survivals to women, the chances of children being enrolled at school and, if enrolled, of continuing in school. The econometric estimates are based on unit record data from a survey — carried out by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi — of 33,000 rural households in sixteen states of India. The study concludes that a broad spectrum of factors affects these outcomes. The literacy of women is important but so is the literacy of men. Infrastructure, in the form of safe drinking water and easy access to medical facilities, is important for infant survivals and, in the shape of easy access to schools, is important for school enrolment. Parental occupation matters for both infant survivals and schooling: children born to women who work as labourers are disadvantaged, relative to other children, in terms of their chances of surviving infancy and, if they do survive, of receiving schooling. The number of siblings that a child has affects his/her schooling outcomes, and gender, religion and region play an important role.     

Understanding ‘trafficking vulnerabilities’ among children: the responses linking to child protection issues in Nepal

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to discuss child trafficking in Nepal within the broader framework of child protection. It examines both individual (gender, ethnicity and caste) and structural (their experiences in relation to work, migration, education and lack of birth registration) vulnerabilities and their links with child trafficking as a child protection concern. The paper provides suggestions for why there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of trafficking vulnerabilities as part of a continuum, rather than a distinct event, to improve outcomes for children. We use the evidence presented here to call for a holistic approach. Policies and programmes must be integrated within the broader concerns of child protection, thus strengthening the system from local to national level, while recognising the importance of children’s rights to participate in any decision-making.     

Gender mainstreaming and rural development policy; the trivialisation of rural gender issues

This paper considers gender mainstreaming of the EU Rural Development Programme. The EU promotes the gender mainstreaming of rural development policies because retaining women in rural areas is seen as crucial to the long-term viability of rural areas. A review of literature and scan of policy documents demonstrates that few rural development plans address gender issues, and generally only by including some separate projects for women. Little is done to address the systemic features of gender inequality and to realise inclusive developments that address the needs of all social groups. The de-politicisation of rural gender issues results in policy makers ticking the obligatory gender box without envisioning any real change in the agenda or process of rural development policy making. I argue that a more fruitful way to go forward is to re-politicise gender in rural development and to tease out at the local level how changing gender relations and rural development coincide.     

The Social Regulation of Markets: Why Microcredit Fails to Promote Jobs in Rural South India

There is growing evidence that microcredit does little to support self‐employment. Two main explanations are typically emphasized: from a microeconomic perspective, the poor have been argued to lack the skills, resources and motivation to start their own businesses; from a macroeconomic perspective, local markets are often saturated. This article uses first‐hand data from rural South India to explore a third explanation which focuses on the social regulation of markets. Drawing on a household survey, the authors show that self‐employment and microcredit are uncorrelated, and that women and lower castes have a significantly lower chance of starting up a business. The businesses they do start tend to be smaller, less profitable and based in very specific sectors. Qualitative insights into the workings of local economies show that caste and gender‐based social regulations influence local markets determining who can produce or sell what, to whom, and at what price. The authors observe that real markets are affected by power relations and structured through social institutions rather than being the sum of interactions between free and competitive individuals. These findings show the importance of integrating self‐employment programmes into broader policies for transforming the social regulation of markets and for eradicating discrimination against women and lower castes.     

Social Protection and Class Relations: Evidence from Scheduled Caste Women's Associations in Rural South India

This article argues that the labouring class poor are best able to access social protection when they have sufficient economic autonomy from their village's dominant class to allow them to act politically. To this end, the article analyses the capacity of associations of scheduled caste female labourers in rural Karnataka (south India) to access social protection through collective action. It identifies links between modifications of the material conditions of the labouring class, their capacity to take political action and the social and institutional forms that reflect the social relations of production. Three important variables are identified: the extent of economic autonomy from the dominant class, support from class‐conscious social movement organizers and the political configuration of the local state. The former variable in particular is something that the mainstream social protection policy agenda fails to prioritize.     

Feminism,the false consciousness of neoliberal capitalism? Informalization,fundamentalism, and women in an Indian city

Neoliberal globalization produces complex terrains of gender exploitation, with – some feminists argue – contradictory impacts on women. On the one hand, it subjects more women to increasing domination and devalorization by capital; on the other hand, women often ‘work’ globalization in ‘enabling’ ways. Informal jobs are often preferred sites for crafting economic emancipation and breaking away from patriarchy at home. Another body of literature argues that the feminization of informalization does not dismantle androcentric, neoliberal capitalism; moreover, reading these moments as women ‘working’ globalization represents a co-optation of women. Using examples of the feminization of informalization and ethno-religious gender violence in Ahmedabad city, India, this article critiques the concept of co-optation and argues that ‘actually existing women’ forge complex negotiations in the context of diverse exploitation, which can be conceptualized better with Marxian and Gramscian notions of false consciousness. The article also contends that understanding false consciousness as an assemblage where gender, class, caste, and ethnicity intersect in myriad ways will create possibilities for resistance.     

Gender and Household Economic Strategies in Rural Appalachia

In recent decades, many Appalachian households have experienced declining incomes due to the loss of traditional male jobs in the mining and manufacturing sectors. One response to this decline has been an increase in female employment in formal sector activities. Another response is homework, or the home-based production of goods and services for sale in the formal and informal sectors. In rural Appalachia, where formal jobs are often unavailable or inadequate to support a household, many women are engaging in homework as an economic strategy. Consequently, economic restructuring cannot be fully understood without analyzing household strategies and gender relations. This paper examines the intersection of gender, households, and economic restructuring as it relates to women's homework and employment shifts in rural Appalachia. Research for this paper entailed qualitative interviews with 50 West Virginia women who are engaged in the home-based production of goods and services. The study analyzes the variety of homework activities done by rural women, their contribution to household incomes, and the effect of these activities on gender relations and divisions of labor in the home. The research forwarded in this study advances a conceptual understanding of household economic strategies and has some practical applications for women and economic development in underdeveloped regions .     

HEALTH OF HOME-BASED SEX WORKERS AND THEIR CHILDREN IN RURAL ANDHRA PRADESH,INDIA

This study uses secondary data from 2006 to assess the physical and mental health of rural, home-based sex workers and their young children in rural Andhra Pradesh state of India. The analyses of survey and clinical data show a high level of morbidity amongst sex worker women and their children. Women show high levels of nutritional deficiencies, anaemia, weight loss and hospitalisation. Women's mental health is particularly serious, with 92 per cent being depressed and 57 per cent having attempted suicide. The majority have experienced domestic and work-related violence, including rape. Clinical assessments of sex workers’ children show that most have received vaccinations, but almost half have parasites, dental problems and nutritional deficiencies. Both the physical and mental health of sex worker mothers are associated with the health of their children. Therefore, health interventions focusing on sex worker mothers have the potential to improve the health of their children.     

The cultural politics of shit: class,gender and public space in India

In this article we seek to interrogate the cultural, political and economic conditions that generate the crisis of sanitation in India, with its severe implications for the poor and the marginalized. The key question we ask is how to interpret and explain the spectre of ‘open defecation’ in India's countryside and its booming urban centres. The discussion is divided into three parts. Part one examines the cultural interpretation of ‘shitting’ as symbolic action underpinned by ideas of purity, pollution and ‘the body politic’. Part two takes the political economic approach to gain further insights into contemporary discourse, performance and cultural politics surrounding toilets and open defecation in India. Part three examines civil society activities, state campaigns and media accounts of open defecation to explore the disruptive potency of everyday toilet activities, and how these interplay with issues of class, caste, and gender. Drawing on interviews and a review of ethnographic work, we seek to interrogate the idiom of modern sanitation, with its emphasis on cleanliness, progress and dreams of technology, as a constitutive idea and an explanatory force in Indian modernity.     

Why Indians Vote: Reflections on Rights,Citizenship, and Democracy from a Tamil Nadu Village

This paper contributes to an empirical and theoretical understanding of democracy and political participation in India through an ethnographic study of the meanings attached to voting in rural Tamil Nadu. Based on a study of voting in a rural constituency during the 2009 national elections, the paper explores the variety of motivations that compel people to vote. It explores how voting is informed by popular understandings of rights and duties as citizens, programmatic policies and their local implementation, commitment to caste and party loyalties, and authority of charismatic leaders. The paper explores the roots of the political consciousness and rights awareness that underpin high levels of electoral participation. It suggests that elections form unique moments that allow ordinary people to experience an individual sense of citizenship and of democracy itself while at the same time allowing them to pursue projects of recognition, respect and assertion as members of communities. It is precisely this dual feature that makes voting so enduringly attractive to India's contemporary electorate.     

Resource Accessibility and Vulnerability in Andhra Pradesh: Caste and Non‐Caste Influences

Coastal Andhra Pradesh in southern India is prone to tropical cyclones. Access to key resources can reduce the vulnerability of the local population to both large‐scale disasters, such as cyclones, and to the sort of small‐scale crises that affect their everyday lives. This article uses primary fieldwork to present a resource accessibility vulnerability index for over 300 respondents. The index indicates that caste is the key factor in determining who has assets, who can access public facilities, who has political connections and who has supportive social networks. The ‘lower’ castes (which tend to be the poorest) are marginalized to the extent that they lack access to assets, public facilities and opportunities to improve their plight. However, the research also indicates that the poor and powerless lower castes are able to utilize informal social networks to bolster their resilience, typically by women's participation with CBOs and NGOs. Nevertheless it is doubtful whether this extra social capital counterbalances the overall results which show that — despite decades of counteractions by government — caste remains a dominant variable affecting the vulnerability of the people of coastal Andhra Pradesh to the hazards that they face.     

Women and the Nationalisation of Literature: Text and Image as Parallel Narratives with Multiplied Meaning in a Hindi Periodical (1927–1941)

The early twentieth century is a period in colonial Indian history marked, among other things, by nationalist explorations of what was commonly described as the upper middle‐class, Hindu high caste ‘woman's question’. In the process, gender roles and responsibilities in public and private spheres were being contemplated and negotiated in oral and written forms. This essay explores the text‐image combinations and relationships in a mainstream Hindi literary periodical published in North India in the 1930s. It focuses specifically on the gendered visual narrative that emerged from this periodical's engagement with the role of women in the Hindi public and private spheres. It argues that through the combination of text and image, the reader of the Hindi periodical Sudha was presented with verbal and visual messages that were deeply embedded in debates on literary and cultural nationalism.     

Causes and Consequences of Inequality in Egypt

This study presents an analysis of various facets of inequality in Egypt using a political economy approach to understand how inequalities are reproduced in the Egyptian economy. It examines the drivers of income and wealth inequality, and the impact of uneven taxation. The paper highlights how the mismeasurement of top incomes can skew the measurement of inequality, and shows how Egypt has one of the biggest wealth gaps in the world. It investigates educational, gender, and healthcare inequalities and how they are reproduced across generations. The paper also highlights the disparity between urban and rural areas, which further contributes to inequality. It assesses why economic growth in Egypt has had limited success in reducing poverty and inequality, and analyzes how state and military interference in markets hampers the growth of the private sector. The paper concludes by examining how inequality, combined with a number of challenges that Egypt is facing, including increased authoritarianism, climate change, demographic pressures, and water security will likely exacerbate many of the country’s socioeconomic and political problems. Overall, the study argues that inequality remains a key concern that, if left unaddressed, may lead to social unrest and instability in the long term.