Social Trends, Vol. 06

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3539

EDITOR'S NOTE

Dear friends,

A hearty welcome to the website of Social Trends, The Journal of the Department of Sociology of North Bengal University (www.socialtrendsnbu.in). The journal made a humble beginning in 2014 and since then it has achieved some important landmarks, becoming a full-fledged refereed/peer-reviewed journal with UGC’s approval. We have published five volumes by now, one each year. In last three years there has been a gradual surge in inflow of articles and research papers from across disciplines. Though the journal has largely been a platform for the young scholars, there have been some notable contributions from celebrated members of the Indian social science fraternity too, rendering much support to us.

The Social Trends is on a mission to capture the fluid, hitherto unrecorded aspects of subjective and collective experiences in an unconventional language, while dialogically engaging with the social science discourses. We also carry forward the conviction that dialectical discourses impact the individual and collective actions and the actions, in turn, bring about changes in the discourses. It is always a delight to see that we are collectively transcending the limits of conventional academic disciplines in capturing the heterogeneous, multi-dimensional intricacies of dialectically moving self and the lifeworld. It is even more delightful to see young scholars enthusiastically participate in this promising endeavour. I would put it on record that our academic collaboration with the Research Committee (RC) on Sociology of Everyday Life of the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) has proved to be immensely beneficial, as both sides prosper in this collaboration.

The valuable counsel of the advisers, the critical comments of the referees, the active interest of the editorial team, and most importantly, the enthusiastic participation of the writers as well as readers always add value to the journal. I am sure, we will cross many more milestones in future and take the journal to new heights.

Sanjay K. Roy
31 March 2019

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 20

Open Access
Bel Bibaha Among the Newars and its Social Significance
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Mangar, Ritu
The Newars are a fairly complex group, speaking Nepali and Newari, the two languages ofIndo-Aryan and a Tibeto-Burmese linguistic group, respectively. The Newars are the oldest among the communities that had settled down in the Kathmandu valley, long back and the majority of them still live there. The Newars distinguish themselves from the dominant Brahmin-Chettris, the Nepali upper castes, in terms of culture. The two important rituals, among many others, that distinguish the Newars from other communities are Ihi and Barha. These rituals, in the mould of “primitive” practice of nature worship, mark two critical junctures in the lives of women. The literal meaning of Ihi is marriage to a belfruit (wood apple) and it is a ceremony of immense social and religious significance to the Newars especially the females. The Ihi ceremony is looked at with high veneration by the Newars.The paper highlights the social significance of the ceremony, the rituals that afre performed, the reasons behind its practice and the changes that have come about with the passage of time.
Open Access
Changing Dynamics of Family Roles: Sharing Experiences from Everyday Life
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Bhutia, Winkeyla
Statistics regarding the participation of the women at work in Sikkim has been encouraging. Factors like education, employment opportunities, reservation in employment, education and political bodies have combined to achieve this. However, the increase in work participation of women also calls for a reorganization of the various roles within the household. Based on my experience as a working woman in an urban setting, this paper attempts to throw light on the changes in the relations within the family in an urban Bhutia household vis-à-vis an earlier situation in a Bhutia family while also exploring the stresses and changes resulting changes in the larger social structure.
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
Complexities of School Choice: Some Reflections from the Field
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Sengupta, Indrani
The paper is an attempt to understand how parents choose schools for their children in the present context of changing educational landscape where private schools are increasing in number. I situate the study in the urban fringes of Maslandapur and Madhyamgram where private players are investing enormously in schools. This gives a spatial dimension to the context of choice. The study shows that choice of school is not based on cost and benefit calculation; the guiding principle being social recognition where the choice of private schools is increasingly becoming a part of this culture. Although the parents reside in the periphery, their aspirations are no less than the city dwellers. The study highlights how parents negotiate with their own space and choose schools of different shades, which are hierarchically located in terms of quality, status and glamour, for their children. Differential control over material resources contribute to selection of schools which have differential pay structures. It is thus important that right based approach to education with a common school system is encouraged. The significance of the study lies in bringing out the complexities that surround the notion of choice of school which point out that the freedom to choose does not always bring intended benefits.
Open Access
Cross Cultural Marriages and the Problem of Adjustment in Conjugal Life
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Chhetri, Chandrani
India is a multicultural society and in the era of globalization people have become more mobile. Love relation among the members representing different cultures is becoming common. But societies and cultures being patriarchal, it is the women who have to make sacrifices and go through the painful process of learning and unlearning cultures. When the husbands extend all support, the wives manage to make the necessary adjustments but when the husbands do not stand by their struggling wives the marriages develop unreconcilable fissures.
Open Access
Elites and Field of Power: Methodological Reflections from Bikaner
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Beri, Suraj
This paper explains the relationship between elite practices and elite claims. It argues that empirical focus on the discrepancy between elite accounts of their self and their practices can be one of the core areas of the methodological dimensions of elite research. It would demonstrate the complex of nature social inequalities and its reproduction. It concludes by arguing that field work in elite research can be made more fruitful by paying close attention to observational data and hence empirical research may look beyond “what is said” and to reach closer to “what is done”
Open Access
“Fixing” Female Bodies through Reproductive Medicine and Assisted Reproduction: An Ideological Critique
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Roy, Pinaki
An ideological critique of reproductive medicine and assisted reproduction’s disavowed socio-cultural complicity in the reiteration of the ideology of heterosexism necessitates a radical interrogation of the presupposed unmediated materiality of the sexed body. This ideological critique, which foregrounds the discursively and ideologically constructed materiality of the sexed body, refrains from fictionalizing the sexed body. On the contrary, this critique attempts to show that the sexed body is a “reified” entity, (re)produced as unmediated through mediations of different technologies of power and the ideological processes immanent in these technologies. These mediations render possible thinking of the sexed body as an entity, yet these mediations which are constitutive of the body are categorically disavowed by the so-called decontextualized medical knowledge and practice in search of objectivity and universality.
Open Access
Identity Crisis in a Cross-cultural Paradox: My Experience
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Bhutia, Sonam Choden
“Identity” is a sum total of perceptions one accepts, imbibes and is fostered on by the society. It is related to both ascribed and acquired social constructs like caste, class, religion and language. Though caste, class, religion are important components of a person’s identity it is through language that the unique ethnic, social, religion and cultural identity is expressed. Language in both written and spoken form is the factor that binds other components of a person’s identity and it is crucial for cultural preservation. Related to the issue of cultural preservation, one finds the role of language especially in case of Tibetan identity. Despite the Chinese insistence that Tibet has always been a part of China, the Tibetan religion, customs, culture and language preserve distinctive features supporting the right to self-determination and independence. In exile, Tibetans under the guidance of His Holiness Dalai Lama have been successful in keeping their identity alive. However, in the recent times, the fear of losing their identity is specially felt when there is a shift away from Tibetan language; with many scattered around the world the Tibetans are under pressure to adopt languages other than their mother tongue. Sociologically, it is stated that endogamous marriage helps in preserving racial purity and culture. Tibetans marrying outside the community face many challenges of which one is the problem of identity. As a daughter of Tibetan father, a Bhutanese mother and the wife of a Sikkimese Bhutia, the confusion arises as to where I, as an individual, stand and face Identity crisis in certain situations in my everyday life. Starting from my experience as a person faced with multiple identity “tags”, the paper attempts to bring forth issues and dilemmas of identity faced by children of mixed parentage. It also highlights the challenges and issues of identity that come up in inter-community marriages.
Open Access
Informal Settlements: A Study of Displaced Living in a Kolkata Slum
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Palit, Kahini
In the absence of a sound planning for the ever-growing population and soaring real-estate prices in the city of Kolkata, a large number of people, ranging from labourers in the informal sector to those who migrated to the city in search of means of subsistence, are forced to live in informal settlements, as encroachers of government lands, subject to eviction whenever the government feels like cleaning up or developing urban facilities like flyovers or green parks. Such evictions often do not offer any compensation, let alone rehabilitation. In most cases, the argument made by the authorities for not providing rehabilitation is that the inhabitants were illegal encroachers and did not possess any legal documents. Again, rehabilitation provided by the government in distant places away from the city fails to serve its purpose, since without income generating infrastructure in the relocated area, the new settlers are forced to come back to the city and set up new informal settlements, as the city offers livelihood opportunities.
Open Access
A Journey from the Periphery to the Core of Middleclassness
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Roy, Sanjay K
The bourgeois democratic societies of Western and Indian forms always provide some free space using which an individual can move through ranks. One such movement or social mobility could be from rural lowermiddleclass position to the urban middleclass position. One can leave the struggling days on the margins behind to move to the affluence and social recognition that urban middleclassness offers. The present paper is an autonarrative of such as journey of a “refugee” child to the core of middleclass culture in West Bengal.
Open Access
Life of the Middleclass Aged in Kolkata By Sinjini Roy New Delhi: Kalpaz Publications, Gyan Books Pvt. Ltd., ISBN 9789353240554, Rs.850/, Pp 255
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Mondal, Sekh Rahim
Open Access
Masculinized Strategic Studies: It’s Impact on the Daily Discourse of Security Policies
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Shayesta Nishat Ahmed
The paper deliberates on addressing the question as to how the masculine streak in the security structure appears as “normal” and why does it get normalized in the security structure. It would look into how the shortcomings of the conventional perceptions and decision-making have impacted the national security concerns of the state as it is generally taken for granted that the national security discourses are built along the lines of masculinist high politics. The military bend of International Relations working in close quarters with disciplines like Security Studies, comes up with a subdued response to the numerous hurdles in the security of humans and the environment. The paper is divided into four parts; the first part attempts at looking into the background and defining the concept of “masculinity”; masculinity in international security studies and at the different variants of masculinity and the different layers of masculinist traditions that are spread across the spectrum. In the second part, the paper looks at the absorption of qualitative masculinist attributes that permeate the discipline of international security studies. In the third part, the paper examines the military bend of masculinity in security studies. The fourth and the final part of the paper talks about how the masculinist trend plays a role in promoting the gendered biases against both the male and female victims in the light of the eschewed gendered security policies.
Open Access
Negotiating Social Security through Network Building: A Study of the Livelihoods of Resident Caretakers in the new Metropolis of Kolkata
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Ghosh, Anamitra
The “resident caretakers”, who constitute a distinct category of indentured labor in the newly emerging urban metropolises of India, have remained a relatively neglected component of research in the field of sociology of labor relations, and therefore they rightfully deserve meticulous attention from the scholars. The present study explores the patterns of migration and resettlement of this category of urban labour force in one of the major suburban cities of Kolkata as an attempt to uncover the process of their absorption into the urban informal sector. The growing number of these indentured laborers in the urban informal sector in India has remained marginalized and denied most of their rights that are given to the formal sector workers. The present paper thus intends to examine this issue as a redresser to the problem of social security among these urban contractual laborers that is multiplying every day in the major cities of West Bengal with the development of the new towns, confiscating boundaries of the upper middle class. The study uses ethnographic case accounts drawn from qualitative face-to-face interviews that draw attention to their livelihood patterns and the vignettes of their network building processes through the derivative component of social capital that is constantly been generated in specific interactional contexts. This in the long run builds together in maintaining a constant sense of identity, personal wellbeing and social recognition of their form of labor in a relatively “negotiated” social space.
Open Access
Not born a Mother, but Naturalized into One: Experiences of Motherhood, Reality and Challenges
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Sachdeva, Swati Akshay
Motherhood is constructed as a biological outcome based on the assumption that when a woman becomes a mother, she is naturally equipped to be one, while its complexities are rarely highlighted. Feminist writers on the subject argue that motherhood is a social, historical and cultural construct rather than a natural consequence of the maternal instinct (Burman 1994a). Motherhood presents itself as a natural outcome because a mother’s personal and unique experience of motherhood interacts to a large degree with the social and cultural representations of motherhood. To be a perfect mother is a natural disposition, requiring little or no effort because mothers work on instincts. Generally accepted notions about motherhood do not change quickly or easily because many of those who concern themselves with issues central to motherhood fail to acknowledge or even recognize that motherhood has this social and historical character (Atkinson 1991). Mothers are trying to live up to something that is placed on them by themselves or other significant people. There is quite clearly a gap between what we claim to know about motherhood and what mothers themselves experience as mothers. Women’s experiences as mothers, their inner perspectives are rarely examined. As a result, little is known about how women experience motherhood. The lived experience of motherhood often, if not always, contradicts the glorified representation of motherhood. Mothers have never really been given the opportunity to express the complexity of being a mother and therefore there are hardly any personal accounts or narratives on how mothers engage in a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of meanings around motherhood, whether their everyday lived experiences contradict or are disjunctive to these ideal images Mothering as a complex and diverse experience and living up to an ideal is problematic. This paper explores the experiences, confessions and personal account of the researcher by looking at the subject of motherhood from the point of view of her relationship with her own mother and mothering her children. There is discussion around ideal representation of motherhood, a mother’s expectations and image of motherhood and how these are challenged as the researcher, engages in a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of meanings around motherhood
Open Access
(Re)Looking at “Dalit” Conceptualization
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Ray, Antara
In the post-colonial India, the ex-untouchables and the other marginalized castes of Indian social order has re-created their identity in the form of ‘Dalits’. This discourse of Dalits is not only present in the form of actionmovements but also in the academic discourse of literary movements. The present paper will, thereby, try to look into the conceptualization of ‘Dalit’ within the Dalit discourse and would try to locate the theoretical underpinnings. In this quest of unraveling the problematic of Dalit conceptualization, the paper will delve into the theoretical approaches of specifically Ambedkar and will compare it with the standpoint of Harijan discourse as propounded by Gandhi. The present paper will also try to look into the various Dalit literatures and the conceptualization of Dalit there in, to critically analyze it.
Open Access
Reciprocity and Relations following Death: Reflections on the Practice of “Sarau” in Sikkim
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Thapa, Sandhya
The reciprocal exchange of goods and gifts following the death, among the kin and community, among the Nepalis in Sikkim and other places is called Sarau. The practice is prevalent among the other two prominent communities of Sikkim, the Lepchas and Bhutias, although they use different names. The practice is socially standardized and keep the community members connected and united. The differential perceptions and practice about the goods exchanged at the individual level however could be a source of social cohesion. Although the practice is universal among the Nepalis one can notice some changes in recent years. Drawing from her participatory observations the author gives a changing account of the practice of Sarau and its social significance among the Nepalis of Sikkim.
Open Access
Self, Attachments and Detachments
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Roy, Sinjini
In trying to understand the process of self-formation, this paper argues that attachments and detachments work in a dialectical interface as self transcends though stages and transcends layers in one individual’s life time. The author draws from her personal experiences in an autobiographical style while illustrating her observations and discourse about the formation of self of an individual through attachments and detachments. The formation of self happens only through interaction between one member with the other members in a lifeworld or social space and the fluid self moves through a developmental cycle. The core argument of the paper is that while one’s attachments and detachments reflect one’s taste, interests and demands of the situation, the experiences thus gathered have a direct bearing upon her self-formation, which, in turn, reflects upon future attachments and detachments.
Open Access
Symbols of Heterosexual Marriage and Negotiations of Heteronormativity: Narratives of Three Generations of Urban Middle-Class Bengali Women Living in Kolkata
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Das, Nabamita
Through interview-generated narratives of women of three generations of urban middle-class Bengalis living in Kolkata and other auto-ethnographic narrative texts; this paper seeks to examine gender, generation and class specific meanings of intimate heterosexual identities and relations. It focuses on the ways in which subjects negotiate, that is, confirm and interrogate, uphold and challenge, submit and rebel institutionalized heterosexuality or heteronormativity through the practice of bearing, not bearing and negotiating with symbols of marriage. Subjects’ ongoing negotiations that tell stories of multiple and contradictory subjectivities, are analyzed to show how personal narratives of intimacy vary across a range of conflicting and competing colonialist, nationalist and trans-nationalist discourses of heterosexuality and cultural mandates of femininity. The paper: • demonstrates that expressions of heterosexual love are socially ordered, culturally learnt and linguistically mediated • examines the power and vulnerability of doing gender and doing class through doing intimacy • brings out the cultural politics of gendering that mediated the colonial history of Bengal • shows how this politics of gendering still reigns strong within a contemporary, urban middleclass Bengali society. This is particularly evident in its women’s narratives of respectable middle-class femininity, who have now come to embody a “modern” Bengal, without, however, failing to bear the cultural “authenticity” of her nation, community, and family • critiques the “individualization thesis” of reflexive modernization by demonstrating that practices of heterosexual love overlap with gender and class-cultural practices and are strongly embedded within family relations, both real and imagined, and • interrogates a colonial-modernist concept of unilinear progress by illustrating, through generational narratives of heterosexual intimacy, the shifting meanings and mutual co-constitution of the putative dichotomous categories of “tradition” and “modern”, “East” and “West”.
Open Access
Thakurmar Jhuli: Recasting the Grandmother’s Bag of Tales
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Sen, Sudarshana
The oldest children’s literature worldwide was oral in origin. It has been a source of enjoyment to children for long. We were also no exception as kids. These stories started to take written shape in different languages of the world from the seventeenth century. It was from then to the eighteenth century that childhood came to be recognized as different from adulthood and the idea of the child as a separate entity slowly started to take shape. It is argued that child and childhood as distinct identities emerged sometime in the same period. It was obvious therefore that the concept of childhood surfaced only with the rise of the print culture, thereby substantiating the claim that the idea of child existed before children’s literature. It is the adult who imposes on the child what it considers to be appropriate for it. One such means is ‘children’s literature’. Whatever way we may look at it, we have accepted that children’s literature is a product of the culture and society like all other kinds of literature. Its producers and consumers are part of the same society, are culturally constructed occupying different positions of power. This paper will explore the immense possibilities of a world created by the adult through an acclaimed children’s literary work by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar’s Thakurmar Jhuli. The paper will delve into the textual construction, a representation of the world in the book to see how the literature in question prepares the child for the future.
Open Access
Understanding Happiness: Secrecy and Fantasy as Modes
(University of North Bengal, 2019-03) Bhowmick, Arunima
Happiness as a social concern, extending into a field of study, has been a phenomenon of the last three to four decades. This departure was seen with economists finding correlates to patterns in consumption and psychologists locating social indicators of happiness to support mental wellbeing. In fact, the term “wellbeing” became a more precise and acceptable one for providing a holistic understanding of happiness 1970s onwards. My focus in this paper is to travel back from this era of social indicative research and locate the position of classical thinkers of Sociology with regard to happiness. Thereby finding a platform to address the epistemological problematics in handling “happiness” as an object of social research presently. Sociology has seen a long absence of research in subjective wellbeing, though there has been perennial enquiry into the position of the individual in construction of society. The debates brought to focus by economists like Richard Layard on happiness fosters enough challenge to the ideas of subjective wellbeing and the objective social indicators used to explain the same. However, this position has a very strong emphasis on one’s “understanding” and “expectations”, both indicative of a regular journey between objective attributes of happiness and subjective negotiations. This paper tries to find ways into this negotiated world of secrets that lies on the other side of the objective reality, arriving at a social that offers its own methodological tools and ontological position for explaining the disjuncture and convergence in ideas of happiness.