Bandana Purkayastha - Böcker

In contemporary discussions of gender relations around the world, a gap often exists between theory—which overemphasizes generalized units such as "international" or "developing"—and the complex ways that global and local forces interact to structure women’s lives in specific countries and regions. Analyses of movement dynamics on the global level contribute to our understanding of women's activism across borders but do not highlight localized politics spearheaded by poor women. Too often, editors Bandana Purkayastha and Mangala Subramaniam have found, marginalized groups in rural or impoverished areas are overlooked by the international economy of knowledge. The Power of Women's Informal Networks describes and evaluates social organization among poor women in South Asia and West Africa. The contributors to this important new collection of essays draw our attention to these small-scale but politically and socially significant networks as they focus on both agency and the situated contexts within which women work together to improve their lives.

In contemporary discussions of gender relations around the world, a gap often exists between theory—which overemphasizes generalized units such as "international" or "developing"—and the complex ways that global and local forces interact to structure women’s lives in specific countries and regions. Analyses of movement dynamics on the global level contribute to our understanding of women's activism across borders but do not highlight localized politics spearheaded by poor women. Too often, editors Bandana Purkayastha and Mangala Subramaniam have found, marginalized groups in rural or impoverished areas are overlooked by the international economy of knowledge. The Power of Women's Informal Networks describes and evaluates social organization among poor women in South Asia and West Africa. The contributors to this important new collection of essays draw our attention to these small-scale but politically and socially significant networks as they focus on both agency and the situated contexts within which women work together to improve their lives.

Why do powerful states like the U.S., U.K., China, and Russia repeatedly fail to meet their international legal obligations as defined by human rights instruments? How does global capitalism affect states’ ability to implement human rights, particularly in the context of global recession, state austerity, perpetual war, and environmental crisis? How are political and civil rights undermined as part of moves to impose security and surveillance regimes? This book presents a framework for understanding human rights as a terrain of struggle over power between states, private interests, and organized, “bottom-up” social movements. The authors develop a critical sociology of human rights focusing on the concept of the human rights enterprise: the process through which rights are defined and realized. While states are designated arbiters of human rights according to human rights instruments, they do not exist in a vacuum. Political sociology helps us to understand how global neoliberalism and powerful non-governmental actors (particularly economic actors such as corporations and financial institutions) deeply affect states’ ability and likelihood to enforce human rights standards.This book offers keen insights for understanding rights claims, and the institutionalization of, access to, and restrictions on human rights. It will be invaluable to human rights advocates, and undergraduate and graduate students across the social sciences.

Why do powerful states like the U.S., U.K., China, and Russia repeatedly fail to meet their international legal obligations as defined by human rights instruments? How does global capitalism affect states’ ability to implement human rights, particularly in the context of global recession, state austerity, perpetual war, and environmental crisis? How are political and civil rights undermined as part of moves to impose security and surveillance regimes? This book presents a framework for understanding human rights as a terrain of struggle over power between states, private interests, and organized, “bottom-up” social movements. The authors develop a critical sociology of human rights focusing on the concept of the human rights enterprise: the process through which rights are defined and realized. While states are designated arbiters of human rights according to human rights instruments, they do not exist in a vacuum. Political sociology helps us to understand how global neoliberalism and powerful non-governmental actors (particularly economic actors such as corporations and financial institutions) deeply affect states’ ability and likelihood to enforce human rights standards.This book offers keen insights for understanding rights claims, and the institutionalization of, access to, and restrictions on human rights. It will be invaluable to human rights advocates, and undergraduate and graduate students across the social sciences.

Most Americans assume that the United States provides a gold standard for human rights-a 2007 survey found that 80 percent of U.S. adults believed that "the U.S. does a better job than most countries when it comes to protecting human rights." As well, discussions among scholars and public officials in the United States frame human rights issues as concerning people, policies, or practices "over there." By contrast, the contributors to this volume argue that many of the greatest immediate and structural threats to human rights, and some of the most significant efforts to realize human rights in practice, can be found in our own backyard.Human Rights in Our Own Backyard examines the state of human rights and responses to human rights issues, drawing on sociological literature and perspectives to interrogate assumptions of American exceptionalism. How do people in the U.S. address human rights issues? What strategies have they adopted, and how successful have these strategies been? Essays are organized around key conventions of human rights, focusing on the relationships between human rights and justice, the state and the individual, civil rights and human rights, and group rights versus individual rights. The contributors are united by a common conception of the human rights enterprise as a process involving not only state-defined and implemented rights but also human rights from below as promoted by activists.

Most Americans assume that the United States provides a gold standard for human rights-a 2007 survey found that 80 percent of U.S. adults believed that "the U.S. does a better job than most countries when it comes to protecting human rights." As well, discussions among scholars and public officials in the United States frame human rights issues as concerning people, policies, or practices "over there." By contrast, the contributors to this volume argue that many of the greatest immediate and structural threats to human rights, and some of the most significant efforts to realize human rights in practice, can be found in our own backyard.Human Rights in Our Own Backyard examines the state of human rights and responses to human rights issues, drawing on sociological literature and perspectives to interrogate assumptions of American exceptionalism. How do people in the U.S. address human rights issues? What strategies have they adopted, and how successful have these strategies been? Essays are organized around key conventions of human rights, focusing on the relationships between human rights and justice, the state and the individual, civil rights and human rights, and group rights versus individual rights. The contributors are united by a common conception of the human rights enterprise as a process involving not only state-defined and implemented rights but also human rights from below as promoted by activists.

In the continuing debates on the topic of racial and ethnic identity in the United States, there are some that argue that ethnicity is an ascribed reality. To the contrary, others claim that individuals are becoming increasingly active in choosing and constructing their ethnic identities.Focusing on second-generation South Asian Americans, Bandana Purkayastha offers fresh insights into the subjective experience of race, ethnicity, and social class in an increasingly diverse America. The young people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Nepalese origin that are the subjects of the study grew up in mostly white middle class suburbs, and their linguistic skills, education, and occupation profiles are indistinguishable from their white peers. By many standards, their lifestyles mark them as members of mainstream American culture. But, as Purkayastha shows, their ethnic experiences are shaped by their racial status as neither “white” nor “wholly Asian,” their continuing ties with family members across the world, and a global consumer industry, which targets them as ethnic consumers.”Drawing on information gathered from forty-eight in-depth interviews and years of research, this book illustrates how ethnic identity is negotiated by this group through choice-the adoption of ethnic labels, the invention of “traditions,” the consumption of ethnic products, and participation in voluntary societies. The pan-ethnic identities that result demonstrate both a resilient attachment to heritage and a celebration of reinvention.Lucidly written and enriched with vivid personal accounts, Negotiating Ethnicity is an important contribution to the literature on ethnicity and racialization in contemporary American culture.

Global Feminist Autoethnographies bears witness to our displacements, disruptions, and distress as tenured faculty, faculty on temporary contracts, graduate students, and people connected to academia during COVID-19. The authors document their experiences arising within academia and beyond it, gathering narratives from across the globe—Australia, Canada, Ghana, Finland, India, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States along with transnational engagements with Bolivia, Iran, Nepal, and Taiwan. In an era where the older rules about work and family related to our survival, wellbeing, and dignity are rapidly being transformed, this book shows that distress and traumas are emerging and deepening across the divides within and between the global North and South, depending on the intersecting structures that have affected each of us. It documents our distress and trauma and how we have worked to lift each other up amidst severe precarities.A global co-written project, this book shows how we are moving to decolonize our scholarship. It will be of interest to an interdisciplinary array of scholars in the areas of intersectionality, gender, family, race, sexuality, migration, and global and transnational sociology.

Global Feminist Autoethnographies bears witness to our displacements, disruptions, and distress as tenured faculty, faculty on temporary contracts, graduate students, and people connected to academia during COVID-19. The authors document their experiences arising within academia and beyond it, gathering narratives from across the globe—Australia, Canada, Ghana, Finland, India, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States along with transnational engagements with Bolivia, Iran, Nepal, and Taiwan. In an era where the older rules about work and family related to our survival, wellbeing, and dignity are rapidly being transformed, this book shows that distress and traumas are emerging and deepening across the divides within and between the global North and South, depending on the intersecting structures that have affected each of us. It documents our distress and trauma and how we have worked to lift each other up amidst severe precarities.A global co-written project, this book shows how we are moving to decolonize our scholarship. It will be of interest to an interdisciplinary array of scholars in the areas of intersectionality, gender, family, race, sexuality, migration, and global and transnational sociology.

This book introduces readers to the many dimensions of historical and contemporary Indian transnationalism and the experiences of migrants and workers to reveal the structures of transnationalism and the ways in which Indian origin groups are affected. The concept of crossing borders emerges as an important theme, along with the interweaving of life in geographic and web spaces. The authors draw from a variety of archives and intellectual perspectives in order to map the narratives of Indian transnationalism and analyse the interplay of culture and structures within transnational contexts. The topics covered range from the history of transnational networks, activism, identity, gender, politics, labour, policy, performance, literature and more. This collection presents a wide array of issues and debates which will reinvigorate discussions about Indian transnationalism. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students interested in studying South Asia in general and the Indian diaspora in particular.

This book introduces readers to the many dimensions of historical and contemporary Indian transnationalism and the experiences of migrants and workers to reveal the structures of transnationalism and the ways in which Indian origin groups are affected. The concept of crossing borders emerges as an important theme, along with the interweaving of life in geographic and web spaces. The authors draw from a variety of archives and intellectual perspectives in order to map the narratives of Indian transnationalism and analyse the interplay of culture and structures within transnational contexts. The topics covered range from the history of transnational networks, activism, identity, gender, politics, labour, policy, performance, literature and more. This collection presents a wide array of issues and debates which will reinvigorate discussions about Indian transnationalism. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, and students interested in studying South Asia in general and the Indian diaspora in particular.

The last few decades have seen a huge increase in attention paid to the trafficking of human beings, often referred to as modern-day slavery. International and national policies and protocols have been developed and billions of dollars spent to combat the issue and protect trafficking victims. Yet it continues to flourish and human beings, in both the Global North and the Global South, continue to be degraded to the level of commodities and smuggled across borders for profit.Drawing upon feminist and human rights approaches to trafficking, this book links the worlds of policy, protocols, and social structures to the lived experience and conditions of trafficked people. Recognizing that trafficking for sex, labor, and body parts often overlaps in a broader context shaped by poverty, violence, and shrinking access to rights, the authors offer a more thoroughgoing account of this social problem. Only with such an integrated approach can we understand the exploitative conditions that make people vulnerable to trafficking, and the progress – as well as gaps – in initiatives seeking to address it.

The last few decades have seen a huge increase in attention paid to the trafficking of human beings, often referred to as modern-day slavery. International and national policies and protocols have been developed and billions of dollars spent to combat the issue and protect trafficking victims. Yet it continues to flourish and human beings, in both the Global North and the Global South, continue to be degraded to the level of commodities and smuggled across borders for profit.Drawing upon feminist and human rights approaches to trafficking, this book links the worlds of policy, protocols, and social structures to the lived experience and conditions of trafficked people. Recognizing that trafficking for sex, labor, and body parts often overlaps in a broader context shaped by poverty, violence, and shrinking access to rights, the authors offer a more thoroughgoing account of this social problem. Only with such an integrated approach can we understand the exploitative conditions that make people vulnerable to trafficking, and the progress – as well as gaps – in initiatives seeking to address it.

This prescient Handbook examines inequalities in humanitarianism at multiple levels, highlighting the long-lasting impact of colonialism on contemporary power relations.Silke Roth, Bandana Purkayastha and Tobias Denskus bring together esteemed experts from the global north and south who introduce crucial research ethics frameworks and methodologies in order to study humanitarianism and inequality. Adopting an intersectional approach, this Handbook demonstrates the ways in which race, gender, class and other sources of inequality intersect in relation to a range of contemporary issues including the role of the media and technology, the COVID-19 pandemic, linguistic inequality, trafficking, and refugee protection and assistance. Looking ahead, the contributors stress the need for academics and practitioners to reflect on the inequalities that both underpin and are perpetuated by humanitarian contexts.Providing a detailed overview of the ways in which inequality has affected the development and transformation of humanitarianism, this Handbook will be essential reading for academics, students and researchers of humanitarian and development studies, international relations, and sociology and social policy. It will also be of interest to public policymakers focussing on humanitarianism and striving for global equality.