Living Class in Urban India
Title | Living Class in Urban India PDF eBook |
Author | Sara Dickey |
Publisher | Rutgers University Press |
Pages | 283 |
Release | 2016-07-14 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 0813583942 |
Many Americans still envision India as rigidly caste-bound, locked in traditions that inhibit social mobility. In reality, class mobility has long been an ideal, and today globalization is radically transforming how India’s citizens perceive class. Living Class in Urban India examines a nation in flux, bombarded with media images of middle-class consumers, while navigating the currents of late capitalism and the surges of inequality they can produce. Anthropologist Sara Dickey puts a human face on the issue of class in India, introducing four people who live in the “second-tier” city of Madurai: an auto-rickshaw driver, a graphic designer, a teacher of high-status English, and a domestic worker. Drawing from over thirty years of fieldwork, she considers how class is determined by both subjective perceptions and objective conditions, documenting Madurai residents’ palpable day-to-day experiences of class while also tracking their long-term impacts. By analyzing the intertwined symbolic and economic importance of phenomena like wedding ceremonies, religious practices, philanthropy, and loan arrangements, Dickey’s study reveals the material consequences of local class identities. Simultaneously, this gracefully written book highlights the poignant drive for dignity in the face of moralizing class stereotypes. Through extensive interviews, Dickey scrutinizes the idioms and commonplaces used by residents to justify class inequality and, occasionally, to subvert it. Along the way, Living Class in Urban India reveals the myriad ways that class status is interpreted and performed, embedded in everything from cell phone usage to religious worship.
India’s Middle Class
Title | India’s Middle Class PDF eBook |
Author | Christiane Brosius |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 401 |
Release | 2012-06-12 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1136704841 |
This book is one of the first ethnographic studies to examine the complexities of lifestyles of the the upwardly mobile middle classes in India in the new millennium. It reveals an original theory on cosmopolitan Indianness and urbanisation in the age of globalisation.
Youth, Class and Education in Urban India
Title | Youth, Class and Education in Urban India PDF eBook |
Author | David Sancho |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 190 |
Release | 2015-12-22 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1317663942 |
Urban India is undergoing a rapid transformation, which also encompasses the educational sector. Since 1991, this important new market in private English-medium schools, along with an explosion of private coaching centres, has transformed the lives of children and their families, as the attainment of the best education nurtures the aspirations of a growing number of Indian citizens. Set in urban Kerala, the book discusses changing educational landscapes in the South Indian city of Kochi, a local hub for trade, tourism, and cosmopolitan middle-class lifestyles. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the author examines the way education features as a major way the transformation of the city, and India in general, are experienced and envisaged by upwardly-mobile residents. Schooling is shown to play a major role in urban lifestyles, with increased privatisation representing a response to the educational strategies of a growing and heterogeneous middle class, whose educational choices reflect broader projects of class formation within the context of religious and caste diversity particular to the region. This path-breaking new study of a changing Indian middle class and new relationships with educational institutions contributes to the growing body of work on the experiences and meanings of schooling for youths, their parents, and the wider community and thereby adds a unique, anthropologically informed, perspective to South Asian studies, urban studies and the study of education.
Poverty Reduction Policies and Practices in Developing Asia
Title | Poverty Reduction Policies and Practices in Developing Asia PDF eBook |
Author | Almas Heshmati |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 309 |
Release | 2015-03-31 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 9812874208 |
This book looks at the major policy challenges facing developing Asia and how the region sustains rapid economic growth to reduce multidimensional poverty through socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable measures. Asia is facing many challenges arising from population growth, rapid urbanization, provision of services, climate change and the need to redress declining growth after the global financial crisis. This book examines poverty and related issues and aims to advance the development of new tools and measurement of multidimensional poverty and poverty reduction policy analysis. The book covers a wide range of issues, including determinants and causes of poverty and its changes; consequences and impacts of poverty on human capital formation, growth and consumption; assessment of poverty strategies and policies; the role of government, NGOs and other institutions in poverty reduction; rural-urban migration and poverty; vulnerability to poverty; breakdown of poverty into chronic and transitory components; and a comparative study on poverty issues in Asia and other regions. The book will appeal to all those interested in economic development, resources, policies and economic welfare and growth.
Values and Life Styles in Urban Asia
Title | Values and Life Styles in Urban Asia PDF eBook |
Author | Takashi Inoguchi |
Publisher | Siglo XXI |
Pages | 522 |
Release | 2005 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9682325641 |
This book gives insights into the basic values and life styles of peoples of ten societies in East, Southeast, South and Central Asia. Based on data from AsiaBarometer public surveys of 2003, it examines human values and life styles of peoples in Urban Asia. It presents country profile and comparative analysis by well-informed scholars, reports of the entire questionnaires (both standard common English language questionnaire and local language questionnaires), the whole comparable tabulated figures by society, the sampling methods and sizes and fieldwork in ten societies.
India's New Middle Class
Title | India's New Middle Class PDF eBook |
Author | Leela Fernandes |
Publisher | Choice Publishing Co., Ltd. |
Pages | 340 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 9780816649280 |
Today India's middle class numbers more than 250 million people and is growing rapidly. Public reports have focused mainly on the emerging group's consumer potential, while global views of India's new economy range from excitement about market prospects to anxieties over outsourcing of service sector jobs. Yet the consequences of India's economic liberalization and the expansion of the middle class have transformed Indian culture and politics. In India's New Middle Class, Leela Fernandes digs into the implications of this growth and uncovers--in the media, in electoral politics, and on the streets of urban neighborhoods--the complex politics of caste, religion, and gender that shape this rising population. Using rich ethnographic data, she reveals how the middle class represents the political construction of a social group and how it operates as a proponent of economic democratization. Delineating the tension between consumer culture and outsourcing, Fernandes also examines the roots of India's middle class and its employment patterns, including shifting skill sets and labor market restructuring. Through this close look at the country's recent history and reforms, Fernandes develops an original theoretical approach to the nature of politics and class formation in an era of globalization.In this sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of an economic and political group in the making, Fernandes moves beyond reductionist images of India's new middle class to bring to light the group's social complexity and profound influence on politics in India and beyond.Leela Fernandes is associate professor of political science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance
Title | The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance PDF eBook |
Author | Lauren Miller |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Pages | 755 |
Release | 2023-11-30 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 1000907910 |
The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance provides a cutting-edge, comprehensive overview of the foundations, epistemologies, methodologies, key topics and current debates, and future directions in the field. It brings together work from the disciplines of anthropology and performance studies, as well as adjacent fields. Across 31 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including: Ritual Theater Storytelling Music Dance Textiles Land Acknowledgments Indigenous Identity Visual Arts Embodiment Cognition Healing Festivals Politics Activism The Law Race and Ethnicity Gender and Sexuality Class Religion, Spirituality, and Faith Disability Leisure, Gaming, and Sport In addition, the included Appendix offers tools, exercises, and activities designed by contributors as useful suggestions to readers, both within and beyond academic contexts, to take the insights of performance anthropology into their work. This is a valuable reference for scholars and upper-level students in anthropology, performance studies, and related disciplines, including religious studies, art, philosophy, history, political science, gender studies, and education.