Contents: Introduction/Kumud Sharma. 1. Reflecting back: forging ahead issues before women’s studies/Neera Desai. 2. Women’s studies: legacies and futures/Mary E. John. 3. Indigeneity and social science/Partha Mukherji. 4. Considerations for a grassroots feminist theory/U. Kalpagam. 5. Changing roles and women’s narratives in Travancore/Meera Velayudhan. 6. Karchob se chuleh tak…. A tapestry of women’s lives/Sahba Hussain. 7. The meaning and content of marriage in a matrilineal Muslim society/Leela Dube. 8. Some thoughts on re-searching the visual/Malavika Karlekar. 9. Expanding horizons: Vidyagauri Neelkanth and four generations of women in her family/Aparna Basu. 10. Learning to see: a personal narrative/Leela Kasturi. 11. Changing tracks/Surinder Jetley. 12. Organisational life of women’s groups: some stray thoughts/Narayan Banerjee. 13. ‘My learning ground has shifted’: musings of a chronicler of the voices of peasant women/Kumud Sharma. 14. Women of character, grit and courage: the reservation debate in historical perspective/Geraldine Forbes. 15. Policies for women: advocacy, analysis and activism/Nirmala Buch. 16. Rhetorics of motherhood: politics policy, and family ideologies in India/Rajni Palriwala. 17. Family strategies, and the education of girls: effects that influence parental motivations/Joy Deshmukh-Ranadive. 18. The science of man or the hierarchised male: Anguste Comte and the scientific community in colonial Bengal/Jasodhara Bagchi. 19. Secularism, religion and minority representation: constituent assembly debates/Lotika Sarkar. 20. Understanding Hindu-Muslim relations: the Banaras story/Vasanthi Raman. 21. Imperialism, fundamentalism and democracy: the challenge for women in South Asia/Indu Agnihotri. 22. Following the dream/K. Saradamoni. Index.
"This volume provides perspectives on a range of issues in some key areas that have exercised scholars and activists in women’s studies for more than two decades. The richly diverse collection brings together contributions by some of the leading scholars in women’s studies who critically reflect on complex questions and challenges facing women’s studies and the women’s movement. The papers address issues such as legacies and futures of women’s studies, a theory of grassroots feminism, politics and practices within the family, kinship networks, marriage and motherhood and the ideologies that shape women’s worlds. The papers also discuss the challenges offered by political processes, fundamentalism and cultural constructions hostile to women. Some contributors have explored the relationship between articulations of the women’s question and the discourses on identity, citizenship and political participation. A few narratives reveal how the worldviews and perspectives of the authors have changed through research in women’s studies. Multidisciplinary and insightful, the 22 articles in the volume will be of interest to scholars and activists alike." (jacket)
