{"title":"Book review: Anjali Singh, Voices and Silences: Narratives of Girmitiyas and Jahajis from Fiji and the Caribbean","authors":"Anirban Banerjee","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272443","url":null,"abstract":"Anjali Singh, Voices and Silences: Narratives of Girmitiyas and Jahajis from Fiji and the Caribbean (London: Routledge, 2023), 215 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"173 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Postnatal Experience in Bengaluru: A Sociocultural Examination","authors":"Jagriti Gangopadhyay, Komal Arcot","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272349","url":null,"abstract":"Postnatal experience is one of the most under-researched areas within medical sociology and anthropology scholarship in India. Using a qualitative lens, this study examines the postnatal experiences of a particular class of working mothers in Bengaluru, one of India’s fastest-growing cities. Through in-depth interviews, the study demonstrates that the postnatal experience of working mothers is layered with social and cultural factors. The findings also revealed that after the delivery, the child is prioritised over the mother, who hardly receives any mental support from her spouse, family members or external network ties. Additionally, these working mothers are often criticised for neglecting motherhood responsibilities and instead focusing on their careers. Expanding the scholarship on postnatal experience, this article highlights the mental agonies and issues faced by working mothers in urban India, as well as in privileged classes.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Ranjana Saha, Modern Maternities: Medical Advice about Breastfeeding in Colonial Calcutta","authors":"Swapnil Chaudhary","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272428","url":null,"abstract":"Ranjana Saha, Modern Maternities: Medical Advice about Breastfeeding in Colonial Calcutta (London and New York: Routledge, 2024), xvi + 274 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"151 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heteronormativity and its Private and Public Balancing in Sri Lanka","authors":"Subham Ghosh, Smriti Singh","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272432","url":null,"abstract":"Within the public sphere of South Asian countries, prominent movements to formally recognise gender diversity and decriminalise same-sex relations have had effects in Nepal and India, but same-sex relations remain a criminal offence in Sri Lanka and other South Asian countries. Against this background, the article analyses an early novel by the Sri Lankan Canadian writer Shyam Selvadurai, showing how prohibition and tolerance go rather uneasily hand in hand within the public and private spheres of Sri Lanka, creating anxious precarities in the everyday lives of individuals, their families and supporters within a heteronormative framework. Since formal legal recognition per se can never fully guarantee the freedom to live one’s life as one desires, the article discusses, in light of Selvadurai’s work, to what extent private individual strategies of navigation and self-management remain crucial for non-heteronormative individuals.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: M.K. Raghavendra, The Writing of the Nation by Its Elite: The Politics of Anglophone Indian Literature in the Global Age","authors":"Devapriya Sanyal","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272354","url":null,"abstract":"M.K. Raghavendra, The Writing of the Nation by Its Elite: The Politics of Anglophone Indian Literature in the Global Age (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), vii + 221 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review: Pallavi Chakravarty, Boundaries and Belonging: Rehabilitating Refugees in India, 1947–71","authors":"Werner Menski","doi":"10.1177/02627280241272353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241272353","url":null,"abstract":"Pallavi Chakravarty, Boundaries and Belonging: Rehabilitating Refugees in India, 1947–71 (Delhi: Primus Books, 2022), xvi + 412 pp.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142183056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mobilising Kinship as a Modern Network: Syrian Christian Family Associations","authors":"Nidhin Donald","doi":"10.1177/02627280241241545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241241545","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the meanings, practices and socio-historical contexts of kudumbayogams (family associations) among the large, relatively prosperous, multi-denominational community of Syrian Christians in Kerala, who are today spread across the globe. Kudumbayogams present new ways of mobilising and displaying family, kinship and community ties. The article argues that while earlier socio-economic shifts inaugurated the spatial dispersal and reconstitution of Syrian Christian patrilineal families and households, they also led to the formation of family associations, alongside other modern associational forms. Based on a detailed analysis of printed family histories, and allied documents, this study conceptualises kudumbayogam as a modern fortification of attempts to resolve the ambiguities of changing times by tethering a Christian brand of upper-caste social conservatism with ‘neoliberal’ individualism. This modern fortification mobilises households and families through an array of structures and activities that seek to foster cultural continuity, communication, conflict resolution and charity among its members. In the process, kudumbayogams actively blunt intra-group contradictions and highlight inter-group differences.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140810989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Boycott of Foreign Goods in Premchand’s Stories","authors":"Canan Yogurt, Aykut Kismir","doi":"10.1177/02627280241240033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241240033","url":null,"abstract":"This article showcases that studies on Hindi and Urdu literature are also being conducted outside South Asia and that elsewhere, too, such literary studies and socio-political analyses are being combined in quite specific ways. Boycott of foreign goods was one of the most important parts of colonial India’s freedom struggle and many intellectuals from the literary and art worlds expressed their views on it. In his Hindi and Urdu stories, Munshi Premchand used his unique narrative technique, critical perspective on social events, and deep understanding of Indian society also to comment on the boycott of foreign goods. The article examines how such reflections of India’s struggle for independence manifest in two of Premchand’s lesser-known stories in which he argued for boycotting foreign goods. Our analysis portrays Premchand as an activist writer, who chose common people’s language to present gendered social documents, in a form akin to oral history, as his specific contribution to India’s freedom from foreign rule.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140837041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Drug Dispensation by ‘Signature Pharmacists’ in South Asia","authors":"Nicholas Lassi","doi":"10.1177/02627280241240031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280241240031","url":null,"abstract":"The phenomenon of ‘signature pharmacists’ in South Asia has allowed allopathic prescription medication to be dispensed without the necessary medical knowledge, specifically of drug interactions, dosages and side effects. This practice, in which qualified pharmacists delegate their professional inputs to often unqualified and unsupervised sales staff, persists due to complicity among pharmacists, other healthcare professionals and regulatory officials. The article discusses the extent of this significant risk to public health in South Asia and argues that pharmacy enforcement and education standards should be reformed to address these huge challenges to ensure consumer protection and the general public’s welfare. While the advice is that regulatory authorities should intensify their supervision and inspection efforts to ensure registered pharmacists actively participate in regular pharmacy operations, the article also identifies predicaments related to corruption that are difficult to tackle.","PeriodicalId":44525,"journal":{"name":"South Asia Research","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140804274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}