The work of love : domestic violence and bodily experience in Kolkata, India
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The World Health Organization estimates that almost one in three women worldwide have experienced abuse by an intimate partner (2013). Despite its high prevalence, global definitions of domestic violence do not travel across contexts. Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Kolkata, India, my doctoral research offers a new account of domestic violence. The women I studied are laborers who live in low-income (slum) neighborhoods and face a continuum of violence in daily life; I followed their stories at home, in clinics, and in NGOs. Through attention to women's bodily experiences, I found that not all violence is marked as abuse and not all abuse is violent. Even when women "stay" in relationships, they do not stay silent. In scenes of complaint, we see how women set thresholds for what they can endure and the stakes of doing so. I argue that existing models for domestic violence in South Asia—the American model of "Power and Control" and the cultural model of "Suffering Sita, " the good wife who suffers in silence—are both inadequate in explaining Bengali women's realities. A nuanced analysis of domestic violence, based in cultural theories of intimacy and the body, can allow us to better hear and attend to women's stories within clinical encounters and spaces of care.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Maitra, Amrapali |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Luhrmann, T. M. (Tanya M.), 1959- |
| Thesis advisor | Luhrmann, T. M. (Tanya M.), 1959- |
| Thesis advisor | Garcia, Angela, 1971- |
| Thesis advisor | Hansen, Thomas Blom, 1958- |
| Thesis advisor | Kohrman, Matthew, 1964- |
| Thesis advisor | Thiranagama, Sharika |
| Degree committee member | Garcia, Angela, 1971- |
| Degree committee member | Hansen, Thomas Blom, 1958- |
| Degree committee member | Kohrman, Matthew, 1964- |
| Degree committee member | Thiranagama, Sharika |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Amrapali Maitra. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Amrapali Maitra
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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