Patricia Jeffery - Böcker

Popular Western images of Indian women range from submissive brides behind their veils to the powerful, active women of Indian politics. In this lively and unique book, Patricia and Roger Jeffery present a different perspective on women's lives. Focusing on the mundane rather than the exotic, they explore the complex interplay between the power of

Appropriating Gender explores the paradoxical relationship of women to religious politics in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Contrary to the hopes of feminists, many women have responded to religious nationalist appeals; contrary to the hopes of religious nationalists, they have also asserted their gender, class, caste, and religious identities; contrary to the hopes of nation states, they have often challenged state policies and practices. Through a comparative South Asia perspective, Appropriating Gender explores the varied meanings and expressions of gender identity through time, by location, and according to political context.The first work to focus on women's agency and activism within the South Asian context, Appropriating Gender is an outstanding contribution to the field of gender studies.

Originally published in 1976, this study analyses the immigration of Muslim and Christian Pakistani families coming into Britain. Dr Jeffery develops the argument to look behind the sharp differences which emerged between the Muslim and the Christian families. Drawing on material gathered in Pakistan as well as Britain, Dr Jeffery paints a picture of the families' lives in Britain from their points of view, and argues that the differences between the Muslims and the Christians must be traced back to the different ways in which they see their positions in Pakistan.

Roger and Patricia Jeffery are well known for their work on religion and gender in South Asia. In their latest book, a study of the demographic processes of two castes in rural north India, they ask why fertility levels are higher among the Muslim Sheikhs than the Hindu Jats. They conclude that explanations can only partially be attributed to gender relationships and religion, and it is the economic and political interests of both groups which are the defining factors. Their marginal economic position provides little incentive for the Sheikhs to raise small families, while the Jats, who are locally dominant, are encouraged to use birth control and educate their children. The authors go on to demonstrate the significance of this analysis for a wider understanding of the problems of population and politics in India generally. The book will be invaluable for students of South Asia and for anyone interested in the demography of developing countries.

Degrees Without Freedom? re-evaluates debates on education, modernity, and social change in contemporary development studies and anthropology. Education is widely imputed with the capacity to transform the prospects of the poor. But in the context of widespread unemployment in rural north India, it is better understood as a contradictory resource, providing marginalized youth with certain freedoms but also drawing them more tightly into systems of inequality. The book advances this argument through detailed case studies of educated but unemployed or underemployed young men in rural western Uttar Pradesh. This book draws on fourteen months' ethnographic research with young men from middle caste Hindu, Muslim, and ex-Untouchable backgrounds. In addition to offering a new perspective on how education affects the rural poor in South Asia, Degrees Without Freedom? includes in-depth reflection on the politics of modernity, changing rural masculinities, and caste and communal politics.

Degrees Without Freedom? re-evaluates debates on education, modernity, and social change in contemporary development studies and anthropology. Education is widely imputed with the capacity to transform the prospects of the poor. But in the context of widespread unemployment in rural north India, it is better understood as a contradictory resource, providing marginalized youth with certain freedoms but also drawing them more tightly into systems of inequality. The book advances this argument through detailed case studies of educated but unemployed or underemployed young men in rural western Uttar Pradesh. This book draws on fourteen months' ethnographic research with young men from middle caste Hindu, Muslim, and ex-Untouchable backgrounds. In addition to offering a new perspective on how education affects the rural poor in South Asia, Degrees Without Freedom? includes in-depth reflection on the politics of modernity, changing rural masculinities, and caste and communal politics.

Popular Western images of Indian women range from submissive brides behind their veils to the powerful, active women of Indian politics. In this lively and unique book, Patricia and Roger Jeffery present a different perspective on women's lives. Focusing on the mundane rather than the exotic, they explore the complex interplay between the power of social structures to constrain individuals and the ways women negotiate these constraints to carve out places for themselves.Based on information collected by the authors during their research in villages in Bijnor District, western Uttar Pradesh, the volume offers eight life histories of Hindu and Muslim women. The women's life histories present a variety of class positions and domestic circumstances, illustrating many aspects of north Indian village life. Interspersed with thematic discussions composed of dialogues, episodes, and songs, the life histories deal with topics of vital concern for women in rural north India: the birth of children, worries about dowry, arranging weddings, sexual politics in marriage, relationships with in-laws, relationships with natal kin, and widowhood.

This book addresses South Asian Muslim women’s lived experiences, whilst questioning dominant concepts of agency.Negative, homogenising constructions of the ‘Muslim Woman’ are not the result of a knowledge deficit, but constitutive of Euro-American and Hindu nationalist forms of civilizational self-assurance. Portraying the richness and diversity of Muslim women’s voices and agency cannot, therefore, rectify discourses casting Muslim women as invisible or silent, so long as the vision of agency is shackled to dominant feminist precepts. Mindful of this problem, the book examines Muslim women’s legal agency with respect to the family, their claims-making upon the state, livelihoods, and the impact of male outmigration on ‘left-behind’ wives. Working across these domains of everyday life, contributors highlight how women’s vulnerabilities within their families dovetail with oppressions experienced in the local state, the labour market, and in the streets. Women’s economic locations continue to shape their agency in crucial ways, with upward mobility often entailing greater restrictions on women’s mobility and independence; yet the chapters caution against romanticising the ironic independence of poverty. Collectively, this volume showcases Muslim’s women’s diverse identities and desires that may be sidelined in dominant concepts of agency.This book will be beneficial for scholars and students of South Asian Studies interested in gender justice, politics and the intersection of religion, culture, and identity. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.

This book addresses South Asian Muslim women’s lived experiences, whilst questioning dominant concepts of agency.Negative, homogenising constructions of the ‘Muslim Woman’ are not the result of a knowledge deficit, but constitutive of Euro-American and Hindu nationalist forms of civilizational self-assurance. Portraying the richness and diversity of Muslim women’s voices and agency cannot, therefore, rectify discourses casting Muslim women as invisible or silent, so long as the vision of agency is shackled to dominant feminist precepts. Mindful of this problem, the book examines Muslim women’s legal agency with respect to the family, their claims-making upon the state, livelihoods, and the impact of male outmigration on ‘left-behind’ wives. Working across these domains of everyday life, contributors highlight how women’s vulnerabilities within their families dovetail with oppressions experienced in the local state, the labour market, and in the streets. Women’s economic locations continue to shape their agency in crucial ways, with upward mobility often entailing greater restrictions on women’s mobility and independence; yet the chapters caution against romanticising the ironic independence of poverty. Collectively, this volume showcases Muslim’s women’s diverse identities and desires that may be sidelined in dominant concepts of agency.This book will be beneficial for scholars and students of South Asian Studies interested in gender justice, politics and the intersection of religion, culture, and identity. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary South Asia.