Browsing by Subject "social change"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Changing Birth Practices and Rituals among the Bengali Women in Siliguri
(University of North Bengal, 2022-03) Sharma, Rukmani
In this paper, I have attempted to make sense of the social ways in which Bengali women find themselves when they go through birth giving. Based on ethnographic study of Bengali women in Siliguri city, this work aims to understand the dynamics of cultural change and continuity vis-à-vis the practice of birth rituals in contemporary times. It examines the ways in which birth practices provide both the context and the medium for the social formation of gender, caste and community relations. The fieldwork insights demonstrate the decaying significance of traditional birth rituals and builds on women’s narratives about the birth as a social event in their personal and family lives. The work draws upon the conceptual and theoretical insights from the sociological literature on child birth and social and cultural experiences, social classification, identity and socialization.
Open Access
Childbirth Practices and Midwifery: Exploring Social Changes in Indian Context
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Sharma, Rukmani
Healthy women represent health standards of any nation, although the maternal health care throughout the world is severely damaged. The paper discusses changes in the social location of Dais and their socio-cultural roles over the decades till the contemporary society. Many scholars have brought to light the way politics of knowledge works, and how the knowledge based on experience, skill, insights and culture is denounced. State has taken several measures in maternal health care but has failed in yielding good results. The paper tires to compare birth practices in different parts of India and tries to evaluate the reasons behind the similarities and differences. Three major areas of the problem have been located in childbirth practices. First, despite of government measures the rural and poor women continue to face discrimination in the maternal health care, particularly those who depend on unskilled birth attendants; second, the over-medicalization of childbirth; and third, the continued practice of homebirth.
Open Access
Democracy, good governance and social change : a study in the context of India’s governing process
(University of North Bengal, 2012) Basu, Debabrata; Sengupta, Pradip Kumar
Open Access
Finding the Ratio between Law as an Instrument of Social Change and Social Changes that Germinated Law: A Unique Indian Scenario
(University of North Bengal, 2021-03) Chatterjee, Biswajit; Bandyopadhayay, Bidisha
The main objective of this paper is to study the way how law and Indian society had interacted with each other during colonial and post-colonial era. While doing so this paper examines why groups seeking social reform have resorted to different movements, litigation which eventually germinated law, and whether and how court-made law has contributed in social engineering. From a sociological perspective, an attempt has been made to treat law in its institutional, historical, socio-cultural, and politico-legal systems and analyze its dialectics with the ever changing Indian society in its broader structural setting. Finally, an attempt has been made to find out the ratio between the spheres where “law changed the society,” and where “society changed the law.”