Understanding the intersectionality of urban Indian women's leisure experience.

Abstract This chapter explores the conflictual location of leisure in Indian women's lives that religion, caste, class, formal education, and financial independence affect deeply. Autoethnography is applied as a methodology to analyse research data gathered from five college-educated, urban, upper-caste Indian women including the author herself. Autoethnography allows for the interrogation of broader processes of inequalities that shape lived experiences, particularly the interpretation of sociocultural contexts of life. The participants perceived leisure time embedded in socializing, religious and cultural gatherings, and family and community events. These collectively form the place, space, and events of women's leisure. Without assigning leisure a defined personal time, their leisure experiences carried layered meanings. It was a location of conformity, resistance, negotiations, desire, conflict, and transformation. Outside the realm of traditional sociocultural experiences, the women were becoming conscious of choice and decision-making capacity in their personal leisure. Their narratives provide insights into the experience of leisure with the nuances of strategies and agency.