The ‘new Indian woman’ occupies a unique social location in contemporary times; she is caught between twin forces of ‘recolonization’ (the influx of a global, consumerist market) and ‘reterritorialization’ (patrolling and protecting women’s familial nature).In public imagination she has achieved the unimaginable by becoming the globe-trotting, successful executive by the day and the vigilant mother by the night. Under the theorist’s gaze, she stands on a web of contradictions caught in a double bind of meeting contradictory expectations of being modern and traditional. My work stands in contrast to studies that assume women indiscriminately adopt cultural practices or that they feel conflicted while negotiating cultural messages.
Instead, combining theoretical strands of Bourdieu’s theory of distinctions and Lamont’s meaning-making, I base my study on the assumption that women are engaged in a process of meaning-making, and that they resolve contradictions or anomalies in their practice by calling upon repertoires of meanings common to the cultural terrain in which they live. I did a qualitative study comparing the religious institution of fasting and the modern institution of dieting to examine how women negotiated the traditional-modernity divide. Findings suggest that the dichotomy gets diffused in the accounts given by women, with no identification of intractable expectations confronting them. Instead women exercised a “speculative modernity” where they distanced themselves from traditional and contemporary explanations of the practices, thereby modifying both tradition and modernity in the process. However for both practices, the women constantly sought validation of their practice by referring to commonality of such practices by women (and men) in similar social (class) locations. In case of dieting, women thought of their practice as a non-gendered health requirement for people engaged in urban economies where as women who fasted identified the practice as an imperative to their role as home-makers.
CONTENTS
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Theories of Culture
Introduction
Cultural meanings as values and beliefs
The Shift: Culture as values and beliefs to culture as resources
Switching gears: Meanings systems and their cultural ‘field’
Conclusion
Chapter Three: Study
Introduction
The cultural site: urban metropolis India
The ‘cultural’ subject: The new Indian women
Understanding the traditional-modernity divide: Fasting as a traditional practice and dieting as a modern practice
Conclusion
Chapter Four: Methodology
Introduction
Research Design
Location of Study: Deciding on an Urban Metropolis
Question Guide: Rationale and Challenges
Analyses and Themes
Selecting the Interview Subjects
Social Aspects of Interviewing: My role as researcher
Conclusion
Chapter Five: Fasting
Introduction
Understanding fasting: Practice of fasting
Meanings given to fasting
- Fasting and religion
Fasting for the well being of the family
Fasting helps maintain health
Fasting and feasting
Fasting is ‘just superstition’
Conclusion
Chapter Six: Dieting
Introduction
Understanding dieting: Practice and Talk of Diet
Meanings given to dieting
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A Sociological Study of the Culture of Fasting and Dieting of Women in Urban India
