
Research has
been the mainstay of the Centre since its inception. As the following
accounts will amply attest, the Centre continues to be responsive to
contemporary problems and new questions demanding investigation, while
recognising the rigours and challenges of inter-disciplinary scholarship in
the broad field of women’s studies. While the Centre has, for practical
reasons, limited its choice of areas of research drawing on the competences
and interests of the faculty, the Centre’s resources and outreach in terms
of the range of topics addressed have been growing. In the following,
brief narrations of research projects and related activities have been provided.
The following Research projects were underway:
RESEARCH PROJECTS

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Electoral
Governance and Democratic Citizenship: A Study on Election Commission of
India
...
read more...
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Contemporary Debates on Citizenship in India
...
read more...
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Survey of Homebased Workers
... read more...
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Media
Censorship and the Postcolonial Regulation of Sexuality and Culture
...
read more...
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The Adverse Child Sex Ration in North-West India
...
read more...
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Gender and Local Governance in Two Cities
...
read more...
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Globalisation and
Women's Work: Dissaggregate analysis of NSSO data
...
read more...
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The Political and Social
Economy of care in India
...
read more...
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Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi
...
read more...
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Heterodoxy and
the idea of women as independent entities: A case study of Kannada
literature in the early medieval period
...
read more...
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Nationalism and B. G. Tilak
... read more...
|

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Multiple Vulnerabilities and Marginal Identities: Exploring Violence
in the everyday lives of Women with Disabilities in the City
...
read more...
|

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Work, Health and Family Life
...
read more...
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Alternate Report on the Status
of Young Child for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
...
read more...
|

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Assessment of
Child Care Services under NREGA
...
read more...
|

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Paradigm of Justice Delivery Mechanisms from the
Perspective of Women Litigants
...
read more...
|

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‘Old’ Self and
‘New’ Space? Women Migrants of Tamil Origin in France
...
read more...
|

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The Family
among the Banaras Weavers in the Wake of the current crisis
...
read more...
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Gender and
Migration
... read more...
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Women, Equality and the
Republic
...
read more...
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Gender, Status of
Profession and Migration: A Study of Nurses from Kerala in Delhi
...
read more...
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Electoral
Governance and Democratic Citizenship: A Study on Election Commission of
India
Researcher: Anupama Roy
Work on the project on electoral governance and democratic
citizenship continued, whose scope has been extended to turn it into
a book manuscript. Focussing on the Election Commission, the
research explores the specificity of the Election Commission given
its historical emergence as an institution designed to ensure a
fundamental rupture from colonial rule following independence, and
the statutory autonomy that was given to it by the Indian
Constitution. A range of archives have been accessed – national
archives, newspaper reports, election materials, Election Commission
reports, judgements and so on. An Occasional Paper drawing from
this research has been prepared. A full draft on the manuscript is
expected by 2010.

Contemporary Debates on Citizenship in
India
Researcher: Anupama Roy
Work
on a manuscript based broadly on Contemporary Debates on Citizenship in
India is continuing simultaneously. Papers emerging from this work have
been presented in seminars/conferences. These include Between Encompassment
and Closure: The ‘Migrant’ and the Citizen in India: The
legal-constitutional language of citizenship in India shows that citizenship
oscillates ambivalently between encompassment and closure. This paper maps
the amendments that have taken place in the citizenship laws in India,
sieving out in particular the category of the ‘migrant’, to identify moments
of encompassment and closure and demonstrate the shifts in the ideological
basis and institutional practices of citizenship in India.
‘Contradictory Cohabitation or Politics of Foreclusion: The IMDT Act
and the Ambivalence of Citizenship’ (co-authored).
Through an
examination of the Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunals Act
1983, this paper examines how the lesson of otherness is continually
reproduced and re-inscribed in the practices of citizenship, through
legal measures and judicial pronouncement.

Survey of Homebased Workers
Researcher: Indrani
Mazumdar
The
collaborative study with the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on
Conditions of Homebased Workers in India conducted with the support
of ILO was completed in 2007. The CITU survey covered 3,300
homebased workers across 10 states. Probably the largest ever survey
of homebased workers in the country, what was unique was the
coverage of 4 metropolitan cities, 41 towns and 43 villages, though
it was based on organizational outreach rather than any statistical
sampling method.
The
detailed analysis of the data generated by the survey was analysed
under the following sections: 1.Gender Characteristics, 2.
Industries and Sectors, 3. Incomes, hours of work and wage rates, 4.
Employment Relations, 5. Markets, 6. Education and Training
mechanisms, 7. Social and economic status of homebased workers, 8.
Social Security, 9. Organisation, 10. Experience of Tsunami.
Highlights of survey findings
82.5
per cent of the workers were women. 86 per cent were piece rated
wage workers, i.e., home workers according to the definitions of the
ILO Convention.
48 per
cent of the workers gave deficit incomes as their reason for doing
homebased work, another15 per cent referred to job loss or
unemployment (their own or husband’s). Only 8 per cent quoted
tradition or hereditary occupation, while 5 per cent quoted social
and family restrictions on working. Surprisingly, only 3 per cent
stated that they were working at home because they could combine
work with childcare and domestic responsibilities. In many cases it
would be a complex of reasons including the lack of availability or
access to better quality employment, but what stood out in the tenor
of the replies of the majority of workers is the harshness of the
pressure of poverty.
Textiles and related products (34 per cent), food processing (14 per
cent), and beedi (11 per cent) were the largest industry segments.
Particularly striking was the fact that among women, the proportions
of textile workers were less than for males. The average monthly
earnings from homebased work was found to be as low as Rs.538/-.
Much of
the literature on homebased work has been focused on the export
connection. However, this survey revealed that only 5 per cent of
the workers were working for export markets. Beedi and agarbatti
were the most completely integrated into a national supply and
marketing network. Food processing also appears to be moving towards
wider markets. Piece rates paid to beedi workers were exactly the
same in Bengal and Delhi, indicating integration into a unified
national market. On the other hand, some of the traditional
occupations – bamboo/palm leaf products, pottery, etc. were almost
solely within localised circuits. Handloom production for local
markets was however shown to be virtually extinct. Somewhat
surprisingly, even religious products such as sacred ashes were
destined for other places.

Media Censorship and the
Postcolonial Regulation of Sexuality and Culture
Researcher: Karen
Gabriel
Work on this project has begun analyzing relevant
material, including a review of laws, policies,
Acts, judgments etc. that pertain to the study of
censorship within the dual contexts of sexuality and
culture. The immediate agenda that guided the
examination of material was to arrive at a
theoretical framework for framing censorship as a
conglomeration of intersecting and historically
implicated agencies, sites, discourses, practices
and apparatuses. The two questions focused on
specifically within this context were ‘why
sexuality?’ and ‘why the media?’ Typically, these
questions had to be historicized and understood more
precisely within their many and changing contexts.
Television and cinema are the two main media under
exploration. This has involved looking at their
histories as media per se, and, at the
history of their relations with the state. Limited
comprehensive or systematized secondary material is
available on the former. Some of the latter is
explicit; but much of it is to be culled out and
deduced from the documentation available.
Since the industrial and institutional aspects of
these are vital to this study, field work is an
integral part of the research. Members of the
relevant media industries have been contacted who
will assist in and enable the collection of material
and the formation of a set of perspectives that
would guide the theoretical framework.
The contemporary location of the study does not
foreclose an examination of the colonial period in
the cases of cinema and the field of the sexual (the
historical section of the project is quite
considerable and indispensable). The discourses that
determine both representation and sexuality have
roots that predate coloniality, and subsequently
also have a complex relation with colonial and
post-independence processes. Two papers on the study
and its findings (one on the history and another on
the institutional structures) are being currently
planned.

The Adverse Child Sex Ration in
North-West India
Researcher:
Mary E. John
The collaborative study on the adverse child sex ratio has been
taken forward through the publication of the Report “Planning
Families, Planning Gender: The Adverse Child Sex Ratio in Selected
Districts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana
and Punjab” by Books for Change. The report summarizes the main
findings as follows: A introductory chapter on the nature of the
problem and the research methodology of the study; a chapter
providing a site-wise analysis; a chapter on the strategies and
technologies of planning families and issues of agency; a chapter
discussing the structural contexts of adverse sex ratios; and a
concluding chapter with main findings, a brief discussion of
government policies and possible interventions.
The plan is to translate
the report into Hindi and Punjabi, and to hold a
dissemination workshop in 2009-10. A separate book
is also planned.
The team of researchers
includes Ravinder Kaur, Rajni Palriwala and
Saraswati Raju, and the final phase of support comes
from IDRC.

Gender and Local Governance in
Two Cities
Researcher:
Mary E. John
This study was initiated while the
researcher was in the Women’s Studies Programme at JNU, and
concluded during 2007-08 in the form of a lead article in EPW
(September 2007). The study focused on reservations based on caste
and gender in urban local bodies, which have been relatively
neglected in the face of the strong identification of
decentralization with the revival of the panchayats. Drawing from
134 interviews among men and women councillors in the Delhi
Municipal Corporation and the Bangalore City Corporation,
significant differences emerged between the two municipalities,
including their caste and gender politics. The study focussed on
two interrelated issues, the problem of so-called “proxy” women and
the “critical mass” rationale for reservations – whether for women
or other excluded groups. While the proxy issue is far more complex
than what existing critiques would allow, the question of whether
women constitute a political identity or force has no easy answers.
Moreover, the urban structures of local government offer several
challenges compared to that of the panchayats, including the
dominance of political parties, the high stakes – including
financial – of the municipal system, the influential role of various
organisations and local leaders, and the career paths of the
councillors themselves. Women’s organisations, among others, have
shown much less interest in interacting with urban councillors,
given some of these complexities. And yet, the study suggests that
the urban situation might hold important lessons for thinking about
the relationships between women, politics and power.

Globalisation and Women's Work:Dissagregate analysis of NSSO data
Researcher:
Neetha Narayana
Pillai
This is an ongoing study
which analyses the employment pattern of women in
the context of structural changes in the economy
with a view to identify the emerging areas of
women’s work and to outline some of the new
developments or changes that are taking place. It
focuses on specific sectors/sub- sectors which are
perceived as potential/emerging areas of women’s
employment, which would enable in-depth probing into
sectoral specific employment issues of women and
thus could be linked to the larger macro economic
transformations. Based on the suggestions during a
presentation of the findings the scope of the study
was extended to take into account factors such as
religion and caste, which are important parameters
for analyzing women’s work. The same was undertaken
during 2008-09.
A number of papers based
on the data analysis have been presented in various
seminars. Two of these articles are published and
two others have been finalized for publication. One
Occasional paper has been published. A second
Occasional paper on the caste and religious identity
dimensions of women’s employment is under revision.

The
Political and Social Economy of care in India
Researcher:
Neetha Narayana
Pillai
This is an ongoing study conducted at the behest of
the UNRISD Programme on Gender and Development. The
objectives of the study are to understand a) the
different institutional sites -- states, markets,
families/households, and communities -- where care
takes place; b) to see how the provision of care in
all these sites is distributed by gender and; c) how
the provision of care [both paid and unpaid] relates
to poverty and social exclusion, and to state
policies to address these. The focus of the study is
on the care for children.
The findings of the study
are to be brought out as a report consisting of six
chapters. Of these, four chapters have been
completed and are accessible from the UNRISD
website. The chapters on Social Policy and Paid Care
Workers have been completed during the past year and
were presented at a seminar organized by UNRISD. The
remaining two chapters are nearing completion and
the final report will be submitted to UNRISD by July
2009. The chapter on the ‘Analysis of Time Use Data’
has been finalized for publication as a chapter for
an edited book to be published by Routledge. The
other two chapters are also being reworked for
publication as articles for the International
Labour Review and Economy and Society
during 2010.
This is a joint study with Rajni Palriwala of Delhi
University.

Conditions and Needs of Women Workers in Delhi
Researchers: Neetha
Narayana Pillai and Indrani Mazumdar
The major objectives of the study are to: 1.
Undertake an in depth analysis of the various
factors that contribute to women workers’ specific
vulnerabilities and to discriminatory and
exploitative practices (including sexual
exploitation) in five important segments of the
female workforce. 2. Identify the specific and
practical needs for enhancing protection of women
workers in these segments, particularly in the
private sector. 3. Review and explore the
effectiveness or ineffectiveness of available
mechanisms and practices currently used for
redressal in relation to sexual harassment in the
workplace and the reasons for this. 4. Prepare a
series of guidelines towards evolving more effective
mechanisms for social protection and redressal of
grievances of women workers.
The study is being carried out for the Delhi
Commission for Women. The study is nearing
completion and a draft report would be submitted to
DCW shortly.

Heterodoxy and the
idea of Women as independentEntities:
A Case Study of
Kannada Literature in the early Medieval Period
Researcher:
Parimala V. Rao
The study attempts to
contextualize the representation of women in early
Kannada literature in relation to sources from
inscriptions. The period envisaged is from 850-1250
AD, and has received grant support from the ICHR.
During 2008-9 several archival visits were made in
May and December 2008 and the analysis of key
Kannada texts has begun. However, since the
researcher has taken up a new position, a request
has been made to put the project on hold for one
year due to teaching commitments.

Nationalism and B. G. Tilak
Researcher: Parimala Rao
As part
of a parallel project on nationalism and the role of Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, a paper ‘Nationalism and the Visibility of Women in Public
Space: Tilak’s Criticism of Rakhmabai and Ramabai’ for the journal
the Indian Historical Review is being prepared.

Multiple vulnerabilities and Marginalidentities: exploring violence in the
everyday
lives of Women with Disabilities
Researcher: Renu Addlakha
This study seeks to
map the everyday lives of a representative sample of women with
disabilities in Delhi.
Using a broad operational definition of violence extending beyond
molestation, rape, dowry and abuse to incorporate the whole range of
social, economic, cultural and sexual discriminations and prejudice that
undercut the lives of persons with disabilities, the project aims to
unravel what it means to be a woman with a disability at home, and in
various public institutional settings.
Fieldwork initiated during the preceding year was
carried forward. Using purposive and snowball
sampling methods, multiple in-depth interviews were
conducted with about 65 informants and over 25 case
studies completed. The focus during this phase was
on interviewing women with disabilities engaged in
the informal sector. In order to highlight gender
dimensions more fully, case studies of a small
number of men with disabilities are also being done.
Some of the initial findings of the study are that
disability as an axis of difference appears to
transcend other sociological parameters including
caste, class and religion in the everyday lives of
informants, validating the conceptualisation of
disability as a master status or identity construct.
This, however, does not undermine the important role
of other socio-demographic variables in the
formulation of the disability experience as such.
Another interesting idea emerging is that their
comparatively better educational, employment and
marital terms notwithstanding, men with disabilities
express more psychological distress and greater
levels of dissatisfaction due to their disability
than their female counterparts, highlighting the
challenges to masculinity posed by disability. With
regard to the relationship between violence and
inequality, informants expressed even more
reluctance to discuss this than sexuality. All of
these demonstrate the need to understand how
oppression and subjugation are cognitively
configured and affectively perceived by subaltern
groups as they grapple with both the physical
impairment and social prejudice that frame their
everyday lives.

Work, Health and Family Life:
(A
Study of home based Agarbatti Workers in Gaya district of Bihar with
Special Reference to Women from Muslim and Dalit community)
Researcher: Sabiha Hussain
The Project Report ‘Gender, Work and Community: A
Study of Agarbatti workers from Muslim and Dalit
community has been substantively revised and
submitted in the form of a report. The different
chapters in the Report are as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Women’s Work, Health and Family
Life: Shifting Paradigms
Chapter 3: Gender Work and Community:
Muslim Women in the Indian Economy
Chapter 4: Respondents and Area Profile
Chapter 5: Women’s Quest for Workers’
Identity
Chapter 6: Our Work Matters Not Our Health
Chapter 7: Gender, Work and Social Status
Chapter 8: Agarbatti Workers: A Tale of
Woe
Chapter 9: Conclusion and Suggestions

Alternate Report on the Status
of Young Child for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Coordinator:
Savitri Ray
In the past one year,
FORCES has completed the Alternative Citizen’s
Report to be presented at the UN Child Rights
Convention, given that the issue of Early Childhood
Care and Development is relatively marginalized in
the context of reporting under the CRC. The UN
Committee has also observed decreased funding
allocations by the Indian government to social
services, declines in Infant and Maternal Mortality
Rates, as well as in the health and educational
status of young children. The Report is the outcome
of various consultations, organized by FORCES at the
regional level in Lucknow, Ranchi, Chennai and
Guwahati. It consists of commissioned chapters
providing a Critical Review of Programmes and
Policies, a Review of Budgetary Allocations, the
Status of Health and Nutrition, Early Childhood
Education, the Social Economy of Care, the
Predicament of the Girl Child, and annexures which
include the situation of children in northeast
India, in the capital region of Delhi and other
important data. A draft report was also shared at
the national consultation in Delhi.

Assessment of Child Care Services under NREGA
Coordinator: Savitri Ray
The other programme
initiated by FORCES as part of research and advocacy
is an assessment of child care services under the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. NREGA is
the only Act in the country that legalizes support
for childcare (for children under six) in the
unorganized sector, by including provisions for
crèches and the availability of safe drinking water.
FORCES feels that these provisions require more
attention. The provision of crèches at work sites,
employment of a helper/ Dai, access to drinking
water and medical facilities and even the use of
child labour at work sites must be thoroughly
probed.
FORCES is collaborating
with state partners to conduct this study in three
states, viz Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
Paradigm of Justice Delivery
Mechanisms from the Perspective of Women Litigants: Empowerment or
Victimisation?
Researcher:
Shalu Nigam
This project looked at
the problems faced by women litigants in their attempts to obtain
justice through the legal system and a draft report of the study has
been prepared.
The study concentrated
on an analysis of the narratives of women who, as victims of
domestic violence, approach the courts under Section 498A of the IPC.
Through their
experiences the processes and functioning of state institutions
becomes visible. The broad findings indicate that while the law has
provided a unique context for women to negotiate claims of
injustice, its concrete functioning disqualifies their experiences
of violence. It is the institution of marriage rather than the
victim that is at the heart of protection by the legal machinery
constituted by the police, lawyers and the judiciary, and others
involved in the actual implementation of the legal process.
Further, procedural lacunae often have the effect of re-victimising
the complainant who is compelled to surrender herself before the
authority of the law. While there is ample scope for the
subjectivity of the agents of the law in its actual operation,
women’s agency and her need for practical solutions are overshadowed
– at most the system provides for punishment. Finally, the study
revealed that far from a growing misuse of the provisions of Section
498A as the public is being led to believe, the law is severely
under-utilised, with existing impediments performing a powerful
demotivating function.
In the face of the new
Domestic Violence Prevention Act of 2005 that has attempted to
address some of the problems in the prior law, the study will
therefore provide a benchmark regarding problems in the prior
structures of laws meant to provide justice to women litigants.

‘Old’ Self and ‘New’ Space? Women
Migrants of Tamil Origin in France
Researcher:
Sreelekha Nair
The researcher is on
extra ordinary leave (October 2007-June 2008) to pursue a project of
nine months as Hermes Post Doctoral Fellow at the
Maison
des Sciences de
l’Homme,
Paris, attached to Centre national recherché
scientifique.
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During this period a short study of women migrants of Tamil
origin in France has been undertaken. It is organised
around the following questions: |
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1) |
How do women negotiate with the new space related to
economic activities? |
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2) |
How do women negotiate their space within the migrant
community, especially when there is a strong sense of
ethnic, cultural identity among the migrants with
concomitant conventional roles? |
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3) |
Do women, as active agents of migration, recreate the
cultural context of the original community which is often
idealized? |
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4) |
How do they keep their ties with their places of origin? |
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5) |
What roles do social networks play in the above processes as
well as in migration? |
This study will form a complement to the larger study on nurses from
Kerala in Delhi which is being completed.

The Family Among the Banaras
Weavers in the Wake of the Current Crisis
Researcher: Vasanthi Raman
The monograph deals with
the impact of the economic crisis on the families of
the Banaras weavers. The crisis is the outcome of a
set of policies that specifically affected the sari
industry and has brought about sweeping changes in
its very structure, visible since 2004. a) The
artisanal cottage industry has been virtually
destroyed, with thousands of handlooms rendered
dormant, throwing lakhs of weavers out of work. This
has been accompanied by the proliferation of
powerlooms, increasing mechanisation and the
introduction of computerised embroidery machines; b)
There is large-scale migration out of the city to
other weaving centres, largely based on powerlooms.
The crisis has led to a fall in the wage rates for
many processes, such as dyeing, post-loom operations
and embroidery etc.; c) The effect on the weavers’
families and gender relations therein is no less,
especially for women who till recently were part of
family labour and are now forced to work for wages;
d) The changed structure of the entire industry has
implications for Hindu-Muslim relations and more
importantly for the very identity of Benares as one
which has traditionally been a cottage industry
based city.

Women and Migration:
Negotiating Rights
Researcher:
Indu Agnohotri, Indrani Mazumdar and Neetha N.
The objectives of this project are to explore
women's experiences of internal migration; analyse
the direction of changes effected in their personal
and work lives; and identify the new possibilities
and tensions generated by migration processes,
including its impact on family relations, economic
structures, and a broad range of citizenship rights.
The focus of the research is to identify the gender
impact and socio-economic contexts of labour
migration from source to destination and onwards,
especially employment relations and conditions of
work in the labour regimes where migrant women
workers are concentrated; contemporary features with
regard to associative migration by women in rural
to rural as well as rural to urban migration
streams; the changing contours/ social outcomes of
migration for marriage; and the response of the law,
citizenship and policy frameworks to the problems
and needs of women as migrants at source,
destination and circulation points.
During the period under review, the central research
team has
completed a pilot run designed to test field survey
questionnaires in Baoli village,
district Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh;
formulated, tested, and then finalized the
questionnaires for field studies after meeting with
the Central Advisory Committee (CAC). These now
include separate questionnaires for households and
for individual migrants;
located and identified sites and personnel for field
studies across six states in the country;
undertaken direct preliminary quick surveys across a
wide swathe of areas in the process of selecting the
sites, bringing new experiences and insights into
the ongoing secondary as well as primary field
research activities. On average, some ten sites per
region are being envisaged although some of the
larger regions may have more and smaller regions may
have less;
trained field investigators for 15 sites in southern
and eastern India, and monitored the progress in 13
field sites where surveys have already begun; these
trainings involved trips to
Tamilnadu, 6th April to 14th
April 2008; Rourkela, Sundergarh District, Orissa, 3rd
May to 8th May 2008; Kerala and
Karnataka, 7th November – 15th
November 2008; Kolkata, 1st -5th
December 2008 and Mumbai, 10th -14th
December 2008.
prepared the ground for field surveys in 10 other
sites where surveys are to begin immediately after
the general elections 2009;
consolidated some of the notes, observations and
insights gained from field visits in the form of an
internal report for the project.
Two regional consultations were held in this period
drawing upon academics, activists, and
policy-makers. The first consultation for the
southern region was held at Chennai, 5-6th
January 2009 covering the states of Tamil Nadu,
Kerala and southern Karnataka.
The second consultation for the eastern region
comprising West Bengal, Orissa and upper Assam was
held at Kolkata, 17-18th January 2009.
The pilot survey of Baoli among brick kiln workers
highlighted some issues for future follow up –
conditions of work that border on bondage, the high
proportion of Scheduled Caste and landless among
migrant households, and the phenomenon of long
distance marriages or ‘faraway brides’ without
dowry.
Detailed analysis of recent NSSO surveys (however
inadequate and out of date) has also been initiated
for the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Women, Equality and the Indian Republic
Researcher:
Indu Agnihotri
The project for the compilation of documents with regard to the
above project, currently under extension from the Ministry of Women
and Child Development since 2007, has been taken forward. Four more
volumes – Rural Women’s Struggle for Visibility edited by Nirmala
Buch, The Lineaments of a Population Policy in India edited by Mohan
Rao, and two volumes on Women and the Law in Colonial India:
Continuities and Discontinuities edited by Indu Agnihotri have been
passed on to the Ministry. The four volumes with Pearson publishers
are awaiting final ratification from the Ministry in order to be
published.

Gender, Status and Migration of
Malayali Nurses in Delhi
Researcher:
Sreelekha R.Nair
The
manuscript titled ‘Gender, Status and Migration of Malayali Nurses
in Delhi’, is being revised for publication, and has been organized
around seven main chapters. While the introductory chapter deals
with the review of literature and questions of methodology, the
second chapter looks at the development of nursing as a modern
profession in Kerala within colonial and post independence contexts.
Questions of status have been critical to the discourses around
nursing ever since its inception, which are addressed in chapter
three. The fourth chapter examines the circumstances in which the
respondents have chosen nursing as a means of livelihood and as a
profession, and how migration is built into this choice. The fifth
chapter examines the processes of migration, including the social
networks that enable their search for work and residence in Delhi.
Delhi, it is understood from the interviews, offers a different
level of experience as part of the diasporic Malayali community.
Their everyday existence as migrant women workers shapes nurses’
relationships to the gender politics of their community, as well as
to the localities within which they live.

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