This study of professional software women in urban India examines practices of respectable femininity and discourses of the
Indian family to understand the changing and abiding aspects of a seemingly new national culture. Colonial and nationalist
constructs of the Indian home, and the middle-class women who protected that home, continue to powerfully shape everyday articulations
of national belonging, even as they are transformed through individual negotiations and a global economy. Drawing from extensive
interviews and ethnographic work, this paper analyzes the interplay of gender, class, and nation in contemporary urban India
as individualized, gendered efforts to accumulate symbolic capital.
Smitha RadhakrishnanEmail:
Smitha Radhakrishnan
is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA. Her current work examines the culture of a transnational
Indian middle class, drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with IT professionals in Mumbai and Bangalore, with comparative
pieces in South Africa and the Silicon Valley. Previously, she has studied the emergence of minority political and cultural
identity in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Theory and Society, Gender and Society, and Feminist Studies. 相似文献
Amid the rise of democratization movements since the 1980s, many governments in developing countries have proactively introduced the ideas of decentralization and devolution into the policy arena. In the pursuit of democratic planning processes where civil society is encouraged to be a part of the formal decision-making system, articles advocating the empowerment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been included into a series of legislations. This shift was soon reflected in housing development frameworks for the poor, leading to the formulation of a new approach called "enablement." The Philippines' experience for the last two decades follows this line of development. Filipino NGOs are now prescribed as a catalyst to add further dynamism to the improvement of substandard living environments. Empirical findings of this study exemplify that NGO empowerment has been increasingly accelerated by the combination of NGOs' self-endeavors and governments' initiatives. By utilizing the paradigm shift under the enablement approach, NGOs are engaged in the attempt of alliance-formation and network-building to expand their influence. Contrary to ideals, however, NGO empowerment may reveal some adverse effects such as excessive dependency on NGOs and distorted representation by NGOs. Moreover, the professionalization of NGOs is an additional factor which generates hierarchization at the grass-roots level. This study suggests that further research analyze the depth and width to which NGO empowerment has been penetrated in order to precisely capture the processes and consequences resulting in disempowerment. 相似文献
The positive association between moderate alcohol consumption and wages is well documented in the economic literature. Positive
health effects as well as networking mechanisms serve as explanations for the “alcohol–income puzzle.” Using individual-based
microdata from the SOEP for 2006, we confirm that this relationship exists for Germany as well. More importantly, we shed
light on the alcohol–income puzzle by analyzing, for the first time, the association between beverage-specific drinking behavior
and wages. In our analysis, we disentangle the general wage effect of drinking into diverse effects for different types of
drinkers. Mincerian estimates reveal significant and positive relationships between wine drinkers and wages as well as between
multiple beverage drinkers and wages. When splitting the sample into age groups, the “drinking gain” disappears for employees
under the age of 35 and increases in size and significance for higher age groups. We also find a “beer gain” for the oldest
age group and male residents of rural areas as well as a “cocktail gain” for residents of urban areas. Several explanations
for our empirical results are discussed in view of the likelihood that the alcohol–income puzzle is a multicausal phenomenon.
The expansion of the organic sector in Brazil is seen as a leverage for the social emancipation of the small family farmers. Next to the traditional alternatives circuits of organic food and farming, new powerful capitalistic actors, such as supermarket chains, are rapidly entering the Brazilian organic arena. Can family farming benefit from the development of these “conventional” commercialisation circuits in the organic sector? Research undertaken in 2007, in a green belt rural community of São Paulo, shows how family farmers may have benefited from the implication of large retail chains in the organic sector and how an economically and ecologically outstanding agriculture may arise from these circumstances. However, we highlight the crucial role played by social regulation: only strong solidarity between farmers and the implication of technicians, militants and researchers in the process made it possible to counter the negative effects of the liberal logic governing the development of organic farming via the major retailers. Still, as tougher competition is expected on the regional organic market, the development of short supply chains involving “committed” consumers and the broader integration of the local farmers in networks of organic militancy appear crucial. It would guarantee a continuous enhancement of the local human and social capital, reinforce an emerging process of internal conversion and allow for a stronger social regulation of the future local development pattern. 相似文献
Research on the social determinants of health in developing countries is increasingly focusing on the importance of gender. Cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension are a growing concern in developing countries, where they are now the leading cause of death. Researchers have documented differences in hypertension between men and women, but the importance of gendered practices in shaping these differences has been left unexamined. Using national data from the India Human Development Survey 2005 (N = 101,593), this study assesses the moderating role of two salient and widespread gendered practices—women’s seclusion and decision-making power—on hypertension disparities between women and men. Both seclusion and low decision-making power are associated with increased odds of hypertension for women, but in the case of seclusion reduced hypertension for men. Results also show the gender gap in hypertension is exacerbated with women’s seclusion and low decision-making power. 相似文献
Scholars, educators, regulators, pundits, and other observers are advocating for regulation and oversight of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genomic testing. As a result, the technology has been subject of highly visible public and regulatory controversy. In this article, we explore the nature and the shape of the sentiment of public discourse about the DTC company, 23andMe. We conduct a quantitative content analysis and qualitative framing analysis on Tweets. We find that the discourse surrounding DTC genomics and 23andMe is largely positive. We also identify a number of frames users deploy to debate, discuss, and share their experiences with DTC genomics and 23andMe. We argue that these frames create meaning around this emerging technology for its users. 相似文献
Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of metabolic status on associations of serum vitamin D with hypogonadism and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS)/benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).
Patients and methods: A total of 612 men underwent physical examination, biochemical/hormonal blood testing, and transrectal prostate ultrasound. Moreover, the subjects filled out standard questionnaires for identification and grading of LUTS and hypogonadism symptoms. Parameters were statistically compared with independent t-tests and correlation analyses.
Results: Vitamin D levels positively correlated with total testosterone (TT) but not with prostate volume or International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS). Patients with metabolic syndrome had significantly lower vitamin D levels, which were not correlated with TT, prostate volume, or IPSS. However, vitamin D was positively correlated with TT, and negatively correlated with prostate volume and quality-of-life IPSS in subjects without metabolic syndrome.
Conclusion: The clinical usefulness of vitamin D for treatment of hypogonadism or LUTS/BPH varies according to metabolic status. 相似文献
3D printing (3DP) has been heralded as a revolutionary technology that can alter the way production is organized across time and space – with important redistributive effects on geography and size of production activities. In this article, we examine the impacts that a widespread adoption of 3DP could have on restructuring, upgrading and distributing value added along manufacturing global value chains (GVC) – with brief examples from the aerospace and automotive industries. We highlight two possible scenarios for GVCs – a complementarity scenario of 3DP and traditional manufacturing overlapping, which would reproduce power relations in GVCs and the current distribution of value added in a ‘smiling curve’; and a substitution scenario of 3DP partly or fully superseding traditional manufacturing, which would have more transformational effects in terms of ‘rebundling’ activities, regionalizing or localizing GVCs, and flattening the smiling curve into a ‘smirk’. 相似文献