Leela Fernandes
Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

“Gender and the Politics of Globalization: Reflections on India's New Middle Class”

Wednesday, April 4, 4:30pm
Thomas 224

Abstract:

Interdisciplinary feminist scholarship has produced critical insights on the gendered politics of globalization. However, such scholarship often operates on the basis of naturalized frames of analysis associated with transnationalism. Drawing on an in-depth study of the rise of India's new middle class, I argue for a move away from two framing devices that shape the study of gender and globalization. The first is a simplified opposition between global elites and subaltern groups. The second is the methodological tendency to begin the study of globalization with visibility and movement. I use my research in India to develop a conceptual framework that can: (1) address the historical continuities and durability that shape the reproduction of intersecting inequalities despite the rhetoric of newness associated with globalization and transnationalism, and (2) locate an understanding of visible phenomena such as changing middle class consumption practices, outsourcing and the rise of call centers within the context of national economic and political processes. The talk is based on field research conducted during the period 1996-2003.

Bio:

Leela Fernandes is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her most recent book, India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (University of Minnesota Press, December 2006) examines the political implications that the rise of the Indian middle class has had for Indian democracy and the politics of globalization. She is also the author of Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) and Transforming Feminist Practice: Non-Violence, Social Justice and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism (A. Lute Books, 2003). Her research interests lie at the intersection of the study of culture, gender and political economy. She has published numerous articles on labor, gender, cultural politics, nationalism, human rights and globalization, and has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, American Institute for Indian Studies, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council.