Posts Tagged ‘urban’
Counting down!
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Gender, India on april 13th, 2010
Desi Girls means Indian girls and this documentary portrays how three young college girls in Delhi look upon gender in their society and in their lives.
To approach the topic of gender, anthropologist Johanna Sommansson spent two months in Delhi at the end of 2008. The research resaulted in a master’s dissertation as well as this documentary.
The girls in the film are all college students in an interesting phase of transition; being young, educated, and of marriageable age. Being a Desi girl is a paradox: on the one hand, they want to be good girls – subservient, humble and obedient. However, on the other hand they are negotiating and challenging the normative behaviour: finding their own identities among the pre-set rules of how to be a good girl in a city unsafe for women.
A documentary by Johanna Sommansson, faithful India traveller and researcher.
The friendly spirit of New York
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Global on december 8th, 2009
I have been to the states, and hence afk for a couple of weeks now. It was was my first visit and it was something like a cultural shock for me actually. I am European and I did not really expect a cultural shock when visiting the states. I will give you examples in a comparative anthropological perspective during December in my blog. Today I will tell you about the friendly and welcoming spirit that hits the New York visitor.
I landed at night-time and just went to the hotel to get some sleep. The first morning and my first impression in New York was when I headed down to Starbucks to get my morning coffee. The staff was overwhelmingly polite and cheerful at the early morning hour. Very friendly and when I had placed my order, and paid for my Soja latte, the barista asked for my name. A couple of minutes later another staff member calls out “Soja latte for Johanna is ready” and a Starbucks cup with my name written on it is placed in my hand.
This was such a nice gesture, I thought of all the stressed people in this million dollar city who rush off to work with a paper cup in hand, with a homely spirited handwritten name on their cups. I was just amazed. I think this is a rally neat and polite gesture to treat your costumers and name their cups. To bring a familiality to the multinational coffee shop is just very clever technique to serve the costumers. I kept returning to Starbucks during my stay in US, never an unfriendly face there. And actually, everyone, everywhere was really friendly and talkative, quite the opposite to my hometown where the “mind your own business” ethos is imbuing the Stockholm city culture. The service people in Stockholm are never overly friendly and I do not expect them to be either. My impression is that the Stockholm general spirit is VERY different from New York.
Alternative discourses on Indian Womanhood
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Gender, India on juni 6th, 2009
The normative femininity among Delhi girls is the “good Indian girl” who is silent, demure and sacrificial, obeys her parents and behaves “good” this apply to Indian females according to my informants, all Delhi girls age 18-20 years. A good Indian wife obeys her husband, that is the normative gender relation after marriage, my informants argue. Even so there are alternative discourses on Indian womanhood, as described in the Indian media in my last blog entry, and these are mirrored in the lives of the Bollywood celebrities in India. During one discussion with my Delhi informant, 19 year old Preity, I used my Bollywood card (discussed in a previous blog entry “the Bollywood card”) discussing the issue of several Bollywood stars that have cross-religious marriages. Since it is not commonly accepted in the public eye, I was curious to hear what Preity had to say about the norm-breaking fashion that the Bollywood celebrities make up. When I asked the Hindu Preity about these matches, she answered that if a Muslim man marries a non-Muslim woman it equals five pilgrimages. So the Muslim man, in the eyes of the public religious conventions, is gaining religious capital in connection with the union. And all the Bollywood cross-religion couples I could think of involved a Muslim man and a Hindu woman.
Another controversial topic I discussed with my Delhi informants involved so called live-in-relationships, when an unmarried couple live together as sambo; this is featured in an interview with a newcomer actress in Bollywood: Mugdha Godse who debuted in the film Fashion in 2008. The journalist Chandran from Indian film magazine Stardust, is asking Godse if she believes in live-in-relationships. It is obviously a question of interest for the potential readers, since it is number two out of 18 questions. She answers that she believes it is a good idea, but in her own case she does not think her parents would agree, she would not go against their wishes. Godse is interviewed pictured as a sex symbol, the questions and the pictures in the interview are daring, but analysing the material discursively, I can see her normative good Indian girl discourse in the text, the example of not going against the parents’ wishes for example.
It is a paradox to maintain feminitinty, regarding the normative, the expected and the personal private issues in one’s life. This dilemma is further problematised in my Master Thesis, Desi Girls -a study of urban middle class girls’ expressions and negotiations of gender, which will be published on my blog shortly.
The Abstract
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology, Gender, India on maj 14th, 2009
Today, May 14, I am handing in my Master Thesis, in Anthropology that has craven my attention for the past months. This is the abstract;
This thesis attempts to understand how gender is expressed and negotiated in the everyday lives of young urban girls in South Delhi. To approach the topic of gender I engaged in participant observation including semi-structured interviews and spending time with young middle-class girls during two months in Delhi at the end of 2008. The girls I encountered in the field are all college students in a phase of transition; being young, educated and of marriageable age.
In constructing a body of knowledge with a foundation in the theoretical framework of discourse analysis, I illustrate how institutions like marriage, family, societal norms, space, and relations between the sexes are juxtaposed in the area of gender. This thesis reveals how gender identity is constructed not as individual accounts, but as juxtapositions of perspectives of individual agency and manifestations of discourses.
Marriage in Delhi is commonly arranged by the parents and is considered a union in which gender needs to be re-negotiated. Aware of the patriarchal ethos imbuing their society, the informants are preparing for the after-marriage talk. After marriage their individual freedom lies in the hands of their husbands, therefore they intend to negotiate with their husbands-to-be to have a marriage based on equality.
Being a Desi girl is a paradox: on one hand they want to be good girls – subservient, humble and obedient – but on the other hand they are negotiating and challenging the normative behaviour when it comes to issues like marriage, go out pubing, or to talking back to their parents. In this thesis, I investigate the societal femininity discourse and the possible discrepancy between the discourse and the actual behaviour. I have concluded that the concept of negotiation plays a key role in the Delhi girls’ constructions of gender.
Key words: Delhi, Gender, Girls, Middle class, Discourse analysis
Researching Networks
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology on mars 22nd, 2009
I think that since networks constitute the fundamental patterns of life it should be one of the major methods for anthropologists to understand the complexities of modern urban societies to use networks as analytical tools. In the interaction with ICT:s our abilities to expand our ego-centred networks are powered. Changes in technology developments lead to change in social structures in the modern network society. Castells’ notion of the ‘network society’ is a concept based on ICT in correlation to society; “…a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologies” (Castells 2004:3).
The individuals’ usage of ICT is only limited by their imagination. The societies of today are enabling social units amid ICT to interact anywhere, at anytime. This connectedness gives us a whole new set of possibilities for interaction. Through ICT individuals build their ego-centred networks. The flexibility of the human networks is complex; the different networks are integrated across age, gender, class and geographical boundaries. Networks are the fundamental patterns of life.
North Delhi ‘n South Delhi
Posted by Johanna in Anthropology on januari 19th, 2009
I neatly dressed and clean shaven man stood at the airport to greet me, in his hand he had a sign saying Johanna Samonsno or something like that, which is not how my surname is spelled but I did realize it was my driver. He escorted me to the car and drove. During the ride I was, as usually when just landed, absorbing all the impressions that India serves me from a car window…
After a while I noticed the surroundings changed, not so many small vehicles on the roads, big neatly cared gardens, skyscrapers and diplomatic cars parked along the pavements. I realised we where in South Delhi. My house was located in an area guarded at night by night watchers. A neighbourhood of well off Indians who could afford the luxury to keep the danger away….The Delhi newspapers every morning in detail report about the atrocities occurred during the night.. So of course I also chose, since I could afford to have a choice, to stay in a safe surrounding.
