Arranged selves: Role, identity, and social transformations among Indian women in Hindu arranged marriages
Abstract
This study probes lived role and identity experiences narrated by three cohorts of North Indian urban women in Hindu arranged marriages. It has focused upon women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, married in the early 2000s, 1990s, and 1980s, respectively. I used an integrated inductive framework that included Life Course, Symbolic Interactionism, and Narrative Identity to conceptualize the study. Further, a combination of ethnography and life-history interviewing emerged as research practices in the field. Over a period of three months in India, I interviewed twenty urban-based Hindu women who were involved in arranged marriages. These interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The interview transcripts or self-stories as well as my own subjectivities became the main body of discourse for analysis. A multi-layered interpretive analysis enabled the emergence of seven Shared Experiences that were common to women from the three cohorts. Alongside these, separate sets of Unique Experiences emerged from a ‘within’ cohort analysis. The Shared and Unique Experiences, represented thematically and in story-form, compose the ‘results’ of my study. An on-going narrative in the study was my own experience of field-work. In the conclusion, I propose some emergent theoretical ideas about social change, narrative identity, representation and reflexivity.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Babrow, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication|Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Womens studies|Cultural anthropology
Off-Campus Purdue Users:
To access this dissertation, please log in to our
proxy server.