eCommons

 

Generating Solidarity Through Everyday Practices: Experiences Of A Rural Women’S Movement In India

Other Titles

Abstract

The scholarship on everyday politics has largely focussed on forms of resistance, foregrounding a conception of political agency that is premised on the assumption of an autonomous consciousness of marginalized subjects. Distinct from accounts of organized collective action which focus on the articulation of shared interests and the achievement of particular outcomes, the central concern has been to establish political agency through actions and intentions of subaltern actors. In this thesis, I examine the experiences of a rural women's movement in the hill region of Uttarakhand in India, which emerged as a consequence of organizing primarily in the arena of everyday practices. I focus on the emergence of 'solidarity', as opposed to 'resistance', and on critical consciousness as a method of organizing, as opposed to an attribute of subaltern subjects, to highlight a relational conception of power and how it is experienced and challenged in particular forms. Based on interviews with movement leaders, activists and participants, and observations of their interactions in 2009, I reflect on why the focus on collective enactments of everyday practices opened up political spaces for women and shaped the conditions of possibility for social mobilizations on specific issues. Organizing strategies of activists emphasize thinking and working through practices, privileging women's experiences and everyday work and activities. I argue that such an approach illustrates how contingency is constitutive of the political. It shows that the process of forging an unstable solidarity premised on addressing conflicts through historically informed practices, which sometimes crystallises to achieve specific outcomes. The trajectory of the formation of this movement, thus, also illustrates how everyday politics and social mobilizations geared toward achieving specific outcomes draw on each other.

Journal / Series

Volume & Issue

Description

Sponsorship

Date Issued

2013-05-26

Publisher

Keywords

Everyday politics; womens movement

Location

Effective Date

Expiration Date

Sector

Employer

Union

Union Local

NAICS

Number of Workers

Committee Chair

Feldman, Shelley

Committee Co-Chair

Committee Member

Wolford, Wendy W.

Degree Discipline

Development Sociology

Degree Name

M.S., Development Sociology

Degree Level

Master of Science

Related Version

Related DOI

Related To

Related Part

Based on Related Item

Has Other Format(s)

Part of Related Item

Related To

Related Publication(s)

Link(s) to Related Publication(s)

References

Link(s) to Reference(s)

Previously Published As

Government Document

ISBN

ISMN

ISSN

Other Identifiers

Rights

Rights URI

Types

dissertation or thesis

Accessibility Feature

Accessibility Hazard

Accessibility Summary

Link(s) to Catalog Record