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History India & South Asia

Why Would I Be Married Here?

Marriage Migration and Dispossession in Neoliberal India

by (author) Reena Kukreja

Publisher
Cornell University Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2022
Category
India & South Asia, Marriage & Family, Women's Studies
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781501764134
    Publish Date
    Apr 2022
    List Price
    $51.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781501762550
    Publish Date
    Apr 2022
    List Price
    $175.95

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Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels

  • Age: 18

Description

Why Would I Be Married Here? examines marriage migration undertaken by rural bachelors in North India, unable to marry locally, who travel across the breadth of India seeking brides who do not share the same caste, ethnicity, language, or customs as themselves. Combining rich ethnographic evidence with Dalit feminist and political economy frameworks, Reena Kukreja connects the macro-political violent process of neoliberalism to the micro-personal level of marriage and intimate gender relations to analyze the lived reality of this set of migrant brides in cross-region marriages among dominant-peasant caste Hindus and Meo Muslims in rural North India.

Why Would I Be Married Here? reveals how predatory capitalism links with patriarchy to dispossess many poor women from India's marginalized Dalit and Muslim communities of marriage choices in their local communities. It reveals how, within the context of the increasing spread of capitalist relations, these women's pragmatic cross-region migration for marriage needs to be reframed as an exercise of their agency that simultaneously exposes them to new forms of gender subordination and internal othering of caste discrimination and ethnocentrism in conjugal communities. Why Would I Be Married Here? offers powerful examples of how contemporary forces of neoliberalism reshape the structural oppressions compelling poor women from marginalized communities worldwide into making compromised choices about their bodies, their labor, and their lives.

About the author

Contributor Notes

Reena Kukreja is Assistant Professor at Queen's University.

Editorial Reviews

Kukreja has written a theoretically rich book that combines Dalit feminist and political economy frameworks.

Choice

Reena Kukreja's exceptional book reviews the multiple markers of oppression and victimhood that women face in rural north India.

Indian Express

Why Would I Be Married Here? offers powerful examples of how contemporary forces of neoliberalism reshape the structural oppressions compelling poor women from marginalized communities worldwide into making compromised choices about their bodies, their labor, and their lives.

New Books Network