Negotiating discourses of womanhood in India : an ethnographic study of young women in a Chennai hostel

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorVarghese, Josephine
dc.date.accessioned2020-12-03T01:47:27Z
dc.date.available2020-12-03T01:47:27Z
dc.date.issued2019en
dc.description.abstractThere is a burgeoning body of literature tracing the changes that ensued India’s process of economic liberalization in the last decade of the 20th century. Scholars have identified an ongoing re-conceptualization of womanhood happening parallel to the changing identity of India as a nation. This ‘new Indian woman’ is positioned somewhat ambiguously between competing discourses of ‘tradition’ vs ‘modernity’; ‘Indian’ vs ‘Western’; ‘individual’ vs ‘community’; ‘global’ vs ‘local’. Young women, often expected to be the authentic bearers of culture, are at the centre of the tensions unfolding between these competing discourses. Many postcolonial feminist scholars argue that this positioning of Indian women between oppositional discourses is reminiscent of colonial discourses, and are an effect of processes which have been termed as ‘recolonization’. In this thesis, I employ a feminist poststructuralist approach to study the perspectives and experiences of young migrant women living in a hostel in Chennai as they navigate competing discourses on womanhood in neoliberal India. Based on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork done across two stages, this thesis delves on the experiences of young women, particularly around four themes of contemporary significance, namely safety and street harassment; dowry; relationships, sex and marriage; and practices and ideals of beauty. Rather than positioning women with respect to binaristic categories such as traditional vs modern this thesis strives to situate women within the complexities and contradictions of their daily lives.en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10092/101349
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.26021/10412
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherUniversity of Canterburyen
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserveden
dc.rights.urihttps://canterbury.libguides.com/rights/thesesen
dc.titleNegotiating discourses of womanhood in India : an ethnographic study of young women in a Chennai hostelen
dc.typeTheses / Dissertationsen
thesis.degree.disciplineAnthropologyen
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Canterburyen
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen
uc.bibnumber2957892
uc.collegeFaculty of Artsen
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Varghese, Josephine_Final PhD Thesis.pdf
Size:
3.84 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Arts: Theses and Dissertations