charukesi September 15th, 2004
Not a typo, this. Check out a netnographic investigation of online communities here.
(Link through antropologi.info)
“Netnography,” coined from ‘ethnography on the Internet,’ is an emerging qualitative research methodology adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet.
There are links to Robert Kozinets’ site with netnography and much more .
charukesi September 15th, 2004
Does it make sense for large Indian states to be broken up (or is it broken down) into smaller managable states?
India Today’s cover story on survey of states (August 16,2004) and the issue following that have done this question to death. (Of course, I do not fully agree with the findings and analysis of this survey - but when have I ever agreed with magazine surveys? Take Punjab - No. 1 on list of 20 large states. Does being No.1 on infrastructure and other parameters make it No. 1 state to live in with best quality-of-life-and-work?)
My take on this is that separation of states with focus on development makes a lot of sense -
For instance, enroute from Jhansi to Khajuraho by car, we constantly criss-crossed UP and MP. At any moment, I was never sure of which state I was in. (Of course, if I had paid closer attention to the number of and size of potholes, I may have been able to make a guess - but I was too busy paying attention to the ‘welcome to UP, thanks for visiting MP’ - or was it the other way round boards. And I soon grew bored of the ‘ now guess where’ game, as did my fellow traveller.)
Similarly, in Karnataka, places on the Maharasthra border (Belgaum, Dharwar…) seem more Maharasthrian - food habits, customs, even language. I actually know Maharashtrians with Marathi surnames who hail from these regions and speak only Kannada.
charukesi September 11th, 2004
Today’s discovery is vichaar.org : thought-provoking insights on India (although I must admit that I found it strange that the writer rather than the reader thought so - but then to each his own). With categories politics, terrorism, economy, security, IndoPak relations and more - this is sure one interesting blog. (A blog discovery a day - is just too much to hope for… Once every so often keeps me happy).
Some shocking revelations on - Domestic violence *increases* with education (link thru womensenew.org). Discussing a study on domestic violence in India (among other countries), the article says that the study found a woman’s risk of being beaten, kicked or hit rose along with her level of education. This finding is accompanied by an intelligent warning not to use this data to push aside any existing thrust on women’s education in India. More disturbing facts and figures are quoted in the report.
….. researchers found that the highest rates of sexual violence were among highly educated men. Thirty-two percent of men with zero years of education and 42 percent men with one-to-five years of education reported sexual violence. Among men with six-to-10 years of education–as well as those with high-school education and higher–this figure increased to 57 percent. (I assume this finding means that the women reported on their men and not that the men themselves admitted to sexual violence).
A similar pattern was seen when the problem was analyzed according to income and socioeconomic standing. Those at the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder–migrant labor, cobblers, carpenters, and barbers–showed a sexual violence rate of 35 percent. The rate almost doubled to 61 percent among the highest income groups.
Researchers have not determined why men with higher incomes and educations are more likely to be violent towards women.
Trying to shake off the feeling of horror that clings to me, I am trying to think about this. Studies across the world, including in countries like the US have shown similar trends.
Does it intuitively make sense to you that men tend to get more violent / abusive towards their wives as their education / income level increases? Of course, it could be possible - the man’s need to be “the man of the house” and to “show the woman her place” might increase as his own self image gets more and more enhanced. But it not an explanation I am entirely comfortable with.
Could it possibly be that the incidence of reported violence / abuse increases as the woman’s education level increases (assuming more educated men marry correspondingly more educated women, as a rule) or among higher income / high socioeconomic classes?
What I mean is : it might not be necessarily more violence itslef but more likelihood and incidence of violence being reported and documented.
Turning cause-effect relationship on its head.
(Not to undermine the trauma of such victims in any way, but just to suggest that research findings need not and must not always been taken at face value. When there is no obvious explanation, look at it from other angles - which most but the best researchers fail to do)
And if this is true, then there is a stronger need for such social monitoring, for sensitivity among the law makers and the ‘protectors’, and better support systems for victims - to enable them to come out of this hell and report it - and then pick up pieces of their lives and move on.
For however educated the woman is, whatever her income and social status, she is reluctant to come out and report such violence - especially sexual violence. Apart from concerns about societal pressures and the future of her children, there is a much deeper barrier holding her back - of battered self respect.
The Indian Government’s Domestic Violence Bill was panned for its entirely subjective and insensitive understanding of the issue . For instance, I quote, the Bill defines domestic violence as conduct whereby the abuser ‘habitually assaults’ the person aggrieved or makes her life ‘miserable’ by his conduct. Why does the assault need to be ‘habitual’ for it to amount to domestic violence? What does one mean by making the life of a person ‘miserable’? Lobbyists have raised enough stink to get the bill reconsidered by the parliamentary working committee - but so far, nothing seems to have come out of it…..
charukesi September 11th, 2004
I know I am on a news-bashing spree. And if you like that, head to Media Musings for more.
(Media Musings is a collaborative blog with Harini on - surprise, surprise - media happenings and ought-not-to-happens)
charukesi September 7th, 2004
For a nation with one of the lowest sex ratios in the world, we have managed to deify woman qiute successfully.
Traditionally, the ‘feminine’ has been the nurturer, fertile and life-giving. She is the earth form, denoting denotes life and energy. All gods in the Indian pantheon have a female countepart goddess (except the confirmed bachelors, of course) and no Indian ceremony is complete without the presence of the woman of the household. In fact, Indian culture has given women the highest status of ardhangini - the other half - without whom no man is complete.
Yet, the woman in India remains an object - to be deified or defiled depending entirely on the curent mood of the country. With Navratri around the corner, I want to think about the idea of the woman as object - a concept by no means unique to India, but worth thinking about in any case. For few other countries have so easily and fully linked womanhood with the key ideas that drive popular thought and discourse - religion and nationalism.
In Life and Times of Bharat Mata, discusses the icon of Bharat Mata and traces its path and changes through recent Indian history. Quoting, there has always been a celebration of the nation’s female body - and of her citizens’ male gaze - beneath the seeming veneration is the need for possession and dominance.
M.F.Husain for ToI’s special issue for the fiftieth year of Indian independence (ridden with symbols of prosperity, veneration, religion - the feminine form is free-flowing yet trapped within the physical boundaries of what represents ‘India’ on the map)
Martha C. Nussbaum discusses here the idea of woman as the nation, in an attempt to understand and explain (if that is ever possible) the sexual tortures inflicted on women (who suffered most in the carnage) during the Gujarat pogrom, and even before, during the partition. This widespread image of the female body as the nation helps to explain why, during the waves of communal violence at the time of independence, possession of women was such an important issue to the contending sides…
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(More on this later, maybe)
charukesi September 6th, 2004
Came across this article on the Infothela*. Three days a week, Bithoor, a small town in UP (roughly 30 km NW of Kanpur, the state capital) gets connected to the world through a computer with a high-speed, wireless internet connection, that is brought in a cycle-rickshaw.
Wheels of hope bring internet to villagers
(Link thru a new blog I discovered thru Dina on social and cultural anthropology)
A strong believer in the power of technology to being about quick and equal reform, I have often heard people say - when we lack schools, trained teachers, and in many places access to even clean drinking water, then why all this noise about technology? Why are we even talking about computers in rural areas? (This question almost sems reasonable, given that currently in India, close to 60 million children are out of school and 38% of all children who enroll in school drop out by the time they reach the fifth grade)
Research done by Azim Premji Foundation suggests that the presence of a highly motivated and dynamic teacher is what excites a community most about school. A close second is taken by a multi-media based interactive learning environment.
Children feel excited about working with computers and parents take pride in the fact that their children are learning computers (in the course of research on education in rural areas, I have found that ‘English’ and ‘computers’ are two subjects parents are willing to send their children to school for at any cost).
Children are now eager to study… can you believe it?
Students learn on their own and ask us questions…. So we have to be well prepared before we come to class everyday…
Wahan angrezi nahi sikhatey, to bacche ko school bhejne se kya faida?
Aaj kal to sab jagah computer hi chalta hai… mere bacche ko to mein kaise bhi school bhejungi woh sab seekhne ke liye
(Some quotes from teachers and parents I met in the course of fieldwork)
Plus, children are naturally curious and computers kindle and channel this curiousity in a way teachers can never hope to, unless exceptionally commmitted and creative (especially in a situation like in rural India - just to provide primary education for all children of school-going age, India requires seven million teachers, if the teacher to student ratio stands at 1:50).
The success of NIIT’s Hole in The Wall Experiment is proof that children are capable of learning without actually being ‘taught’ (The Constructivist Theory of Learning propounds the belief that the learner constructs knowledge according to his or her own understanding of the concept. Construction moves the focus of learning from the teacher to the taught.)
Based on the idea of Minimally Invasive Education, these computers were envisioned as a pedagogic method that uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no intervention by a teacher.
My answer to the nay-sayers would be that if computers atleast serve the purpose of creating interest in learning and education, the task of getting children to school is half done. The first step in the huge task.
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thela - hand push-cart typically used for vending on the streets.
charukesi September 6th, 2004
The hills are alive…
Or they come alive just after the rains…. Malshej Ghat was bright green and cool…. Have heard that flamingos flock to Malshej Ghat during the rains. But none to be seen yesterday (they have gone back to wherever they came from?) Roads good and awful in parts. In all, a pleasant day out of Bombay.
Also spotted enroute :
Near Kalyan - Siva Shakti English Covent School
On the menu at Sushant Hotel in Malshej Ghat - Veg Snakes
rong>It happens Only in India?!
charukesi September 4th, 2004
Russia - yet another hostage crisis gone terribly wrong…. And most heart-wrenching was this story - when a mother was made to choose between her two children….
Anybody who has read or seen Sophie’s Choice will know what I mean….
From a review of the movie - In the film’s third flashback, Sophie tells Stingo about her “choice.” When she arrived at Auschwitz — on a “beautiful spring night” — she was ordered to select one of her children, who would then be sent to the ovens; the other would be spared. This sequence is especially heartbreaking, as the screaming little girl is carried away to die.
My heart goes out to these mothers… Having to live with the trauma and the guilt for the rest of their lives…
charukesi September 3rd, 2004
No, not Chandru who celebrates the return of the devil….
One of Indian advertising’s most written-off campaigns turned out to be one of the most memorable and lovable….
Chandru says, the Devil told people it is OK to be a show-off. It’s OKAY, really, to flaunt what you have, cause you deserve to.
Absolutely. And it also told people - it is ok to want - to aspire, to covet what is now not yours. And remember this was the time when the advertising fraternity in India had not bought into terms like ‘instant gratification’ and ‘consumerisation of society’.
Was trying to understand this ad within my favourite framework : Transactional Analysis*.
The devil spoke to us from a child state (characterized by instinct, impulse and emotion). And surprisingly, we as consumers, responded from a child state. An equal transaction here. No wires crossed.
Not as the critical parent, or the rational adult shocked by the imp’s suggestion to go ahead and turn green. And why? The devil spoke straight to the child hidden within the wannabe rational adult - wanting to make a rational decision on a product category like television (still a high value product in India).
Most of our reactions to everyday transactions, as well as their outcomes, can be understood better using TA. I had blogged long ago on my reaction to a couple of other ads…
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* Fundamental to TA is the notion that our personality consists of three ‘ego states’ : Parent,Child, Adult. A sender communicates from one of these three ego states. At the other end is the receiver(’s) ego state. At the core of Berne’s theory is the rule that effective transactions (ie successful communications) must be complementary. They must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state. For example, if the stimulus is Parent to Child, the response must be Child to Parent, or the transaction is ‘crossed’, and there will be a problem between sender and receiver.