Search

In this paper, I examine how an organization narratively constructs its prototypical disabled employee. Data comprise public narratives of the Government of India, the country's largest employer of disabled persons. Narratives during 2008–2016 were considered as this timespan witnessed the design of inclusive legislation that emphasized defining disabled persons and their entitlements. Findings indicate that the label of "disadvantage" was consistently used to portray the target employee. Alongside other narrative material suggesting, for example that the target employee was someone who required employment assistance, this label was supplied to external audiences to convert them into potential partners. This supply of narrative material further reinforced the portrayal of the target employee. Consistent use of this expansive label subsumed changing definitions of who is a disabled person, allowed for aggregations with diverse disadvantaged collectives, and accommodated changes in employment entitlements and ecosystem partners, thereby allowing the reading of change in stable narratives. The contributions of this paper lie in highlighting how the consistent use of an expansive label can cast narrative stability and change as complementary, and in suggesting that narrating a prototypical employee entails shaping the setting outside the employing organization toward employee categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte: Internationale Zeitschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswissenschaft is the property of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Malayalam cinema is a vibrant creative space that post 1990s, underwent a transformation, leading to a proliferation of films, uniquely experimental in nature. An interesting perspective explored in detail was that of mortality, analysis of death from a microcosmic perspective. Evaluating death as an event in Deleuzian framework enables us to gain interesting insights and the film used for study here is Ee. Ma. Yau. (2018) which has a funeral foregrounded in the narrative. The paper traces the encounter with death in popular films, over time, to comprehend social discourses built around mortality in India, specifically in the southern state of Kerala in India. Death and the social interventions in this context emerge as aspects significant for this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of political narratives in the making of a conflict and its resolution. India-Pakistan rivalry has persisted far too long now. It has been one of the most protracted and intractable conflicts. Furthermore, this paper develops a linkage between the distorted narratives and intractability of a conflict. Intermittent military engagement has sowed the seeds of mutual distrust between India and Pakistan. Nevertheless, the lamentable part is that the rivalry has been accentuated by distorting the narratives. Narrative is a very powerful force in the realm of international political arena. It is strong enough to change the trajectory of any relationship that exists in international system. It is notable that the distorted narratives are very much useful for the ruling elite to divert the attention of the masses from the pressing demands such as employment, education, decent standard of living so on and so forth. Political narratives in Pakistan against India still breed fear psychosis in the civil society of Pakistan. Among these, one has been that India has not accepted the partition of Pakistan as a reality and would try to undo the partition eventually. In the light of the above-mentioned correlation between distorted political narratives and sustainability of the conflict, this paper dwells on how the deconstruction of the political narratives (which portray false political realities) is quintessential to understand the practical details of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the narratives of voices identifying the harrowing aftermath of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, and the representations of the contemporary effects of partition in Bapsi Sidhwa's novel Ice Candy Man. The narrative unfolds past experiences through the eyes of different characters and surroundings from different social, political and religious backgrounds. The novel vividly portrays the horror of violence during the partition, as communities that once coexisted peacefully become engulfed in a whirlwind of hatred and bloodshed. Sidhwa's polyphonic narrative experiences reflect the multifaceted nature of violence, from communal riots to personal tragedies creating a poignant portrayal of human suffering and resilience. The theme of partition, violence, and memory permeates throughout the novel, encapsulating the socio-political upheavals that marked the birth of two nations – India and Pakistan. This paper, therefore, attempts to analyse the novel in order to understand the ideas of the 'polyphonic narrative' of Mikhael Bakhtin's theory and many other postcolonial critic's ideas. For portraying the human experience amidst a backdrop of partition and historical turmoil in shaping narratives as presented in the text by applying the theoretical framework of Postcolonial theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals in multilingual societies are associated with several culturally diverse groups, and so their cultural identity is multifarious and subject to constant change across time and space as a result of increasing intercultural engagements. While cultural norms are essentially embedded in one's language, the choice of language is understood as a significant tool in projecting the cultural identity of a linguistic community. This paper examines how language choice becomes an agency for Tamil speakers in India to construct their cultural identity. Contextualized among native Tamil speakers in Chennai, the capital city of the southernmost Indian state of Tamil Nadu, this study unravels the narratives by which the speakers' specific language preference in family, friendship, and institutional domains is used to perform identities and maintain a community consciousness. It also examines the role of language ideologies in contributing to their choices. The study finds that despite the penetration of English into all three domains in varying degrees, Tamil remains the 'pride' and the preferred language for all. This affinity is driven by ideological discourses surrounding the cultural history of Tamizhakam, from which arise the need to form a distinct Tamil identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on art productions by children participating in an art-based wellbeing intervention project in Kashmir. Drawing on feminist security studies, we conducted narrative analysis to explore how children represent in/security. The locations of in/security were the environment, the body, and the socio-political realm. Children articulated nuanced and complex representations of the natural and social world, influenced by local and global forces, and created their own meanings and practices of in/security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the fractured reality of pandemic, the people's history needs to be written and understood. This paper provides a historical narrative on pandemics based on a literature review and makes inferences from the past and present. This narrative also reflects the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world and India. The narratives provide a novel perspective to understand public health practices in a global context. It suggests the need for a more synchronized health response in pandemics while highlighting the uncertainties and challenges of using historical diseases as comparisons for the COVID-19 pandemic. The emphasis is on learning from historical evidence and ascertaining how these retrospective diagnoses help make arguments about health and illness in our present moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this special issue is to take stock of graphic narrative creation in English, produced and distributed from within India over the last 20 years. With this focus, the Special Issue engages with theoretical as well as aesthetic considerations, thinking through what 'the 21st century canon of Indian graphic narratives' looks like, what its predominant themes and preoccupations have been to date, as well as the forms in which Indian graphic narratives in English have appeared post millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Elder abuse is the matter of grave concern in recent times in India. Today, older people are facing the abusive behaviour such as maltreatment, mental and physical torture and heedless ignominy from the family and the society. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of elder abuse in Indian socio-cultural context and also focuses on the causes of elder abuse and abusers.Design/methodology/approach Mixed method design has been applied in this paper. The study has been conducted from October 2012-January 2013 on a sample of 220 older people living in both rural and urban areas of Lucknow, India. The data have been analysed through descriptive and narrative analysis.Findings The study finds that the emotional abuse is more common among the older people, which raises the feeling of insecurity, depression and isolation. The study also points out that the respect, honour, status and authority which were enjoyed by the elderly in the traditional society, have gradually started declining. Moreover, the study finds that the family members, do not provide proper food, clothing and medical facilities in rural areas.Research limitations/implications Since the sample of older respondents was small and focused on those living in a particular area of one state, the authors cannot generalise from this study to include the great diversity of experience and difference in perceptions among the older people even within a particular state. However, widespread and diverse types of accounts of elder abuse were reported even in these settings, which can help indicate areas for future research and policies.Originality/value This is an original paper, which is based on the experiences of older people living in rural-urban areas and discussed the elder abuse in socio-cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the process and outcomes of Voices, a participatory action research project aimed to disrupt divisive ethnic identity narratives among youth living amidst protracted ethnic conflict. The project took place in the Garo Hills region of Northeast India, a site of protracted ethnic conflict. Moving away from crisis-based approaches, this paper explores the conflict transformative potential of participatory action research, specifically its effectiveness in facilitating civic engagement across ethnic lines. The findings indicate that young people's involvement in the project afforded them an opportunity to engage with local community concerns outside of polarized ethnic identity narratives. This involvement facilitated three critical outcomes: engagement in social critique, reconfiguration of a more inclusive researcher identity, and adoption of a language of possibility. Based on these findings, it is argued that opportunities for critical community engagement could interrupt divisive ethnic identity narratives and provide turning points for youth to reimagine inclusive social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article will investigate the contemporary Jain diasporic experience through an analysis of online narratives on 'diaspora Jains' and 'diaspora Jainism'. Over the past two decades, digital media have become an important new arena to imagine, construct, and share the diasporic experience, both for members of the diasporic community and for Jains living in India. This paper will elaborate on and compare different narratives on the Jain diasporic experience found online, identify recurring themes, and question where and why specific discourses on diaspora are propagated. The juxtaposition of 'Indian' and 'diasporic' narratives illustrates how digital media have brought the diasporic periphery in closer contact with the religious centre, and how this renewed connection can spark subtle negotiations and heated debates about what it means to be 'in diaspora'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often migrants are caught between spaces where they live negotiating between their past and present selves. A sense of nostalgia traps them from within, which gets reflected in comparative parameters through their interaction with the new place and culture, through changing frameworks of family and relations, and through varying levels of perceptions. As a social phenomenon, migration gets potent when seen through the perspectives of time, nostalgia, and memory. Temporality hence is closely connected to the understanding of the process of migration. This paper aims to analyze the conditions and situations that the migrants face when aspects of time and remembrance are brought together on a temporal scale of past and present from select migrant narratives of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. This paper will explore the social history of the transnational migration of foreign-trained doctors to western countries in the post-WWII era, by examining, as a case study, South Asian-trained doctors who were first licensed in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia between 1961 and 1971.Design. This article draws on both quantitative and qualitative primary sources. First, we analyzed the 1966 and 1971 copies of the Canadian Medical Directories (CMD), the annual compendium of all licensed practitioners in the country (over 20,000 practitioners). These CMD entries were supplemented by the annual returns of ‘intended occupation’ (those designated as ‘physician’ or ‘surgeon’) of landed immigrants to Canada, as compiled by the federal Department of Manpower and Immigration. Secondly, we analyzed testimony of 26 oral histories and narrative accounts of foreign-trained doctors being compiled as part of an ongoing multiyear program of research on the immigration of foreign-trained doctors to Canada. We have interviewed 14 doctors who, at one point in their career, practiced in Nova Scotia, 8 of whom were South Asian-trained medical practitioners. These oral interviews provide personal reflections on the process of professional and social acculturation that occurred as these foreign doctors settled in Canada.Results.The results of this paper indicate that the social history of the immigration of South Asian-trained doctors to Canada in the 1960s must be seen within a larger and more complicated pattern of the international migration of health care professionals. Indeed, the demand for foreign-trained doctors in Britain was in part a reflection of the out-migration of British-born doctors who were leaving the National Health Service for Canada, the USA, and Australia. And the demand in Canada for doctors was itself a reaction to the drift of a certain number of Canadian-trained doctors for advanced training in the USA.Conclusions. In this way, this article sheds important historical perspectives on the globalization of health human resources and the complicated, multiple migrations that continue to animate international health human resources today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the perception of disabled working women in small organizations in India's private sector. A meticulous study of past research revealed a paucity of research for working women with disabilities (WWD), especially in small enterprises in the Indian context. There are misconceptions and barriers associated with women with disabilities across the world. Past research demonstrates negative attitudes and related stereotyping notions regarding disabled working women. In sum, they are considered weak, incapable, and dependent on others. There has been insufficient research on employee disability, but there is limited research on the feelings and experiences of disabled working women, especially in the Indian context. This research paper's primary purpose is to understand the perception of disabled working women in the workplace pertaining to various support dimensions, and it focuses on organizational support systems and job structures to enable more involvement of this group. Interviews of the anonymous participants were face-to-face and in-depth. The managerial implications of the study are also discussed with future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the use of photo-elicitation interviews in constructing migrant narratives of health and well-being. It argues that photo-elicitation can be particularly effective in producing nuanced understandings about relationships among culture, place and health. It explores how, through this method, subject-centred understandings of health and well-being are able to challenge dominant discursive constructions that tend to ‘other’ and potentially stereotype minority groups in explanations of health behaviour. The paper includes discussion of issues of power and representation in research with marginalized populations, which further elaborates the value of photo-elicitation in developing a non-essentializing view of minority groups. The paper concludes with comment on the potential value of this method in the formulation of health and social policies aiming to incorporate the views and needs of marginalized or minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hardly any management theory nowadays fails to take culture's influence on today's organizations into account. At the very foundation lies the belief that the intercultural boundary can be determined externally—by etic view. In my paper I show how much emic organizational reality differs from etic view. Hereby, I refer to two years of fieldwork that I conducted in a global high-tech company at sites in Germany, Austria and India. I choose this approach to trace culture as an open process of sense-making in practice. Through interpretative anthropological means, I identified several discourses of collective identity that were constructed narratively—often regardless of the presumed etic border of "Germans" vs. "Indians." In summary, this paper makes the following contributions: Firstly, it shows how emic and etic categorizations of the cultural other can differ in a complex environment. Secondly, it looks in depth into the emic categorizations of "the Other" and how they are constructed narratively. Thirdly, it draws conclusions for the field of intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1947 partition of India left such a traumatic impact on communities that generations today are still grappling with how to remember the event. In the absence of official State commemoration, historiographical and literary scholarship has served to recuperate and disseminate those traumatic memories. This scholarly response comes out of and often interacts with the private experience of subjects who are haunted by the affective excess of partition. This paper examines the relationship between affect, life narratives, and the emerging genre of literary partition anthologies, with a focus on the anthological editor who tries to make sense of India's traumatic partition. Anthologies perform a significant task in the articulation of a collective trauma since they register numerous accounts of partition. More pertinent, however, is their implication in pedagogy and academic institutions, which gives them the ability to (re)shape a national consciousness. This paper argues that melancholia is the affect that dominates partition scholarship and emerges in the editorial practices connected to the creation of partition anthologies. Using several partition anthologies this paper demonstrates the ways in which melancholia plays a critical role both in the formation of subjectivities and the production of knowledge. The melancholia of partition anthologies simultaneously constrains and directs a new response to a past trauma made present once again, thus enabling new modes of (re)action, of resisting partitionist divides, and engaging with the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the life story accounts of 12 left wing terrorists in India. Narrative interviews revealed that the accounts were broadly coherent and contained similar rhetorical structures with regard to: i) images of the self (imagoes); ii) significant others (interpersonal figures); and iii) visions of the future (generativity script). Specifically, it appeared that individuals developed imagoes of poverty and oppression, identified the state structure as corrupt, and terrorist leaders as heroes of the oppressed. Further, the accounts revealed a commitment to an exploitation-free society (generativity script) and an ideological devotion to a rhetoric that justifies extreme violence. The paper considers the possibility that such coherence is formulated around propaganda and indoctrination that is more sympathetic and harmonious with these individuals' worldview and hence has a powerful shaping process on their development. Finally, we discuss the practical implications of the findings and suggest major policy shifts in dealing with the left wing terrorist groups in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on three ethnographic studies of surrogacy we carried out separately in different contexts: the western US state of California, the south Indian state of Karnataka, and the western Russian metropolis of St Petersburg. In our interviews with surrogate mothers, intended parents, and surrogacy professionals, we traced the meanings and ideologies through which they understood the clinical labour of surrogacy. We found that in the US, interviewed surrogates, intended parents and professionals understood surrogacy as an exchange of both gifts and commodities, where gift-giving, reciprocity, and relatedness between surrogates and intended parents were the major tropes. In India, differing narratives of surrogacy were offered by its different parties: whilst professionals and intended parents framed it as a win-win exchange with an emphasis on the economic side, the interviewed surrogate mothers talked about surrogacy as creative labour of giving life. In Russia, approaches to surrogacy among the interviewed surrogate mothers, professionals and intended parents overlapped in framing it as work and a businesslike commodity exchange. We suggest these three different ways of ethical reasoning about the clinical labour of surrogacy, including justifications of women's incorporation into this labour, were situated in local moral frameworks. We name them "repro-regional moral frameworks", inspired by earlier work on moral frameworks as well as on reproductive nationalisms and transnational reproduction. Building on these findings, we argue that any international or global regulation of surrogacy, or indeed any moral stance on it, needs to take these local differences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last few years have seen the emergence of a cybersecurity regime complex divided into specialized forums discussing different sub-issues. But how do the main actors in cyberspace make sense of its fragmented governance, and how does that translate to their broader strategic narratives? Furthermore, to what extent are these in line with the predominant macro-narratives in the cyber-domain? To answer these questions, this article explores the strategic narratives of the European Union, Russia, and India in two of these specialized forums: one related to responsible state behavior in cyberspace, the other to cyber-crime. Through the study of narrative fragments — a new approach to the study of strategic narratives in multilateral settings — it concludes that these actors largely include these two issues within their broader strategic narratives. This highlights the importance of cross-issue analysis in the study of multilateral arrangements, particularly in the context of emerging regime complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the oral narratives of the Konyak and other Naga groups, the story of a woman is told who got married to an Ahom prince of the Assam plains and became a queen. Her name was Watlong. Recently a heated dispute between two Konyak villages arose regarding which village did Watlong actually originated from. Both villages claim her as the identification model by presenting stories, songs and objects of evidence handed down since generations. In this paper I follow the story of Watlong in its different variations in detail and suggest that the negotiation of identity among the (Konyak) Nagas, which is traditionally carried out through their specific oral narratives, is nowadays challenged through scriptualisation and notions of ‘the script’ mainly introduced by Christian mission. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: This paper explores use of narrative ideas in the context of occupational therapy practice while working with groups of children with handwriting difficulties. Method: 14 children in the age group of 7 to 10years who were part of an occupational therapy 'Handwriting Training Programme' at a Child Development Centre, Mumbai were interviewed by the author using narrative practices. The 13 week handwriting training program was structured to include 20 minutes of conversation time in each session which was facilitated by the author. The conversations were videotaped and transcribed to explore emerging themes. Results: Using the narrative practice of externalizing conversations, which focuses on separating the problem from the person, allowed the children to effectively identify the handwriting problem, describe effects of the problem on them, their lives at school, their families and friends. Conversing about the problem as a separate identity helped reduce feelings of guilt and blame, enabling them to take a stand against the problem and develop strategies to reduce the effect of the problem. Parent's reported a 'sense of responsibility and insight' in the children towards the need to change their handwriting. Conclusion: This paper highlights potential use of narrative ideas as a framework for a client centered practice within the context of occupational therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian cities seem particularly prone to investigation through narrative both for the abundance of material about the origins and the development of urban centres from ancient to medieval times--which often contrasts with the relative scarceness of purely 'historical' data--and for the tendency to elaborate modern and contemporary "a posteriori narrative- myths" (Aravot 1995) through popular media such as cinema and television. Using methodological tools provided by research on narratives and analysing two case studies with reference to the cities of Ayodhyā and Bengaluru, the present paper investigates the processes and the dynamics by which narrations on cities are made to evolve. It builds on the conceptual frame provided by recent narratological scholarship, with a specific reference to the "increasing recognition of the ubiquity of narrative within any culture, in discursive practices as diverse as theology, historiography, economics, legal practice, political speech-making, everyday conversation and philosophy" (Rigney 1992: 263-264, italics in the original). Focusing on the 'constructive' aspect of narrative, seen as a discourse that intrinsically involves the active (and determinant) participation of the narrator, it argues that this perspective of analysis allows the researcher to interpret urban narratives eminently in political terms, or within relations of power--which also legitimizes the use of narrative materials for historical research. In broader terms, it contends that narration can give back structured information about the values and the practices which characterize a given society, and which are selectively communicated by the narrator(s); and that, in turn, this quality of 'restoring' structured information may shed more light on the inherent nature of narration itself and lead to further theorization both on its creative dynamics and its created artefacts. Practice of exploration of narration in a context of open communication with other disciplines may undoubtedly facilitate this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bio-economy is characterised by aspirations of replacing the fossil-based economy with biobased energy, resources and processes; biofuels are particularly popular. This new shift comes with multiple risks and uncertainties in both industrialised and developing economies. The uptake of biofuels is inextricably linked to and legitimised by policy processes involving a complicated nexus of vested interests, political aspirations, and technological drivers, and a range of associated factors. In this paper we describe the characteristics of and contours along which two national biofuels policies in India and South Africa have been articulated and developed. In doing so we establish how a biofuels regime has gained legitimacy, becoming embedded into policy processes dictated largely through specific networks and reflective of the rationalising effect of global and local narratives. We analyse how pro-poor 'win-win' narratives gained purchase amongst different actors and in turn how they were used as a basis for biofuels policies. The case studies are, however, complex and differentiated, pointing towards sociopolitical nuances and structural subtleties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses an approach to verbal autopsies that engages with theRashomonphenomenon affectingex post factoconstructions of death and responds to the call for maternal safety. This method differs from other verbal autopsies in its approach to data collection and its framework of analysis. In our approach, data collection entails working with and triangulating multiple narratives, and minimising power inequalities in the investigation process. The framework of analysis focuses on the missed opportunities for death prevention as an alternative to (or deepening of) the Three Delays Model. This framework assesses the behavioural responses of health providers, as well as community and family members at each opportunity for death prevention and categorises them into four groups: non-actions, inadequate actions, inappropriate actions and unavoidably delayed actions. We demonstrate the application of this approach to show how verbal autopsies can delve beneath multiple narratives and rigorously identify health system, behavioural and cultural factors that contribute to avoidable maternal mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Amitav Ghosh has won many accolades for his fiction that is keenly intertwined with history. His fiction is characterized by strong themes that may be sometimes identified as historical novels. His themes involve emigration, exile, cultural displacement and uprooting. He illuminates the basic ironies, deep seated ambiguities and existential dilemmas of human condition. He, in one of the interviews, has observed, "Nobody has the choice of stepping away from history" and "For me, the value of the novel, as a form, is that it is able to incorporate elements of every aspect of life-history, natural history, rhetoric, politics, beliefs, religion, family, love, sexuality". Amitav Ghosh's success as historical novelist owes much to the distinctiveness of his well-researched narratives. He remarkably manifests a bygone era and vanished experiences to life through vividly realized detail. The better reference in this context is his celebrated second novel, "The Shadow Lines" (1988) which was published four years after the sectarian violence that shook New Delhi in the aftermath of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. This constitutes a logical background in the novel, and it makes readers probe various hammering facets of violence. Also, his treatment of violence in Calcutta and Dhaka in this novel is valid even today. The novel is largely set against the backdrop of major historical events such as the Swadeshi movement, the Second World War, the partition of India, the communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta, the Maoist Movement, the India-China War, the India-Pakistan War and the fall of Dhaka from East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. It is the story of the family and friends of the nameless narrator which has its roots in broader national and international experience. In the novel the past, present and future combine and melt together erasing any kind of line of demarcations. The text harps on the concerns of our period, the search for identity, the need for independence, the difficult relationship with colonial culture. It magnificently interweaves fact, fiction and reminiscence. It is a continuous narrative which replicates the pattern of violence not only of 1964 but also of 21st century. The fragmentary narratives unfold the narrator's experiences in the form of memories which move backwards and forwards. While focusing upon the text of The Shadow Lines the paper aims at examining and elaborating Ghosh's historical touches and their implications. The paper also investigates his narrative techniques employed in the novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I use the theory of Appreciative Inquiry to highlight the strengths of individuals with labels in special education, and present two narratives: one from India and one from the United States. I argue that personal narratives which urge one to see beyond the negative connotations of labeling must be critical components of special education policy-making [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the boom of recent comics scholarship, the comic art of India has received little attention compared to that of other nations, the United States, France, and Japan in particular. Through a basis in religious and folk narratives, Indian comics narratives, especially those published by the Amar Chitra Katha series, have worked to update folk tales, retelling them in a modern medium. By looking at the figure of Rama in the Amar Chitra Katha and other Indian comics, this paper will analyze the process and implications of this transformation. In particular, the analysis of Rama as contemporary hero will reveal how these stories help people to deal with daily life at the same time that they affirm another, older way of understanding the world. This paper will thus demonstrate how comics creators in India have adapted the comic book to effectively re-maneuver traditional tales as a modern, folkloric inheritance to future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a three-year research project entitled Minority Women Negotiating Citizenship.1 Conceived of in the aftermath of Gujarat 2002, the project studied 75 life-history narratives of Muslim women survivors of communal violence in Gujarat, Hyderabad and Mumbai, in order to map their everyday experiences of negotiating survival, marginalisation and exclusion. While analysing our material we found that our preliminary organising or analytic categories - victim, agent, Muslim, woman, class, location - could not contain the negotiations and fluid 'subjects' of the narratives. The most useful analytic concepts and tools were those being used by the women themselves in their narratives, such as bahar nikalna and sambhalna. These women negotiate a hostile state, poverty, violence, communalised politics and public spaces, and increasingly belligerent community structures on an everyday basis. The complexity of 'identity' and 'agency' as they emerge in the narratives, and the syncretic nature of their everyday negotiations, challenge the rigidity of existing frameworks and dominant discourses on issues of Muslim identity and citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental degradation and social dislocations caused by industrial agriculture have created an urgency to rethink food production and consumption. The proliferation of farmers markets is one example of the public response to perceived problems with the existing food system, however the bewildering array of food choices suggest a need for new guidelines for food and agriculture. This paper asks how expanding the moral imagination through narrative can help us rethink human behavior in the context of agricultural practice. Agriculture is an inherently relational, and rethinking practice means revisiting metaphors and narratives that guide behavior in the biotic community. I use a Hindu agricultural narrative to think through existing practices and the narratives contexts. This story does not romanticize human relations with nature, but instead reflects power dynamics in human (and particularly gendered) relationships, and, more important, in human interactions in the biotic community. My analysis considers relevant tropes and themes, e.g. citizenship and community, so that we can ask "what stories about agriculture do we tell ourselves?" and "what stories might we be telling?" to address the current agrarian crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's tangible and intangible cultural heritage is extremely diverse, rich and ancient. The value of the tangible heritage of monuments, temples and other works of art such as paintings, sculptures and handicrafts has been acknowledged and efforts are being made to restore, maintain and conserve these cultural expressions. However, the less visible forms of cultural heritage, pertaining to oral traditions, aesthetic and religious beliefs, rituals and festivals, arts, music, folk traditions, dances, theatre forms, performing arts and narrative styles of storytelling have not, until recently, received much attention. The paper makes a critical assessment of the necessity, importance and significance of protecting this cultural heritage. It then addresses several issues related to the preservation and conservation of India's intangible cultural heritage. Lastly, it suggests ways and means to preserve, safeguard, maintain and strengthen India's rich and diverse, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic cultural heritage so that it remains a vibrant, dynamic and living part of community life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One characteristic of violence is the unmaking of language and fracturing of the victim's social world. In recent theorising, narrative is posited to play an important role in restoring the victim to his/her status as a social person. Fiona Ross (2003) has argued that it is naïve to assume the ‘speaking self equates with the healed self’. She shows that individuals can be harmed when they lose control over their narratives circulated in the public sphere. Using an encounter with a woman accused of witchcraft, my article traces the way her experience has been appropriated by her family and in broader spaces of engagement between villagers, police, media and finally, the anthropologist. The article raises questions about the contexts in which there is no voice for a woman to assert her control. Seeking to contribute to an ethical theory of risk and vulnerability, this paper suggests that closer attention should be paid to the processes of forgetting and grieving as forms of control articulated through the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do victim states not ask for redress from perpetrator states? Focusing on former extractive colonies, the vast majority of which, despite having suffered brutal colonial rule, have not asked for redress—apologies, reparations or restitution—from their former colonizers, this article argues that the content of historical narratives in the victim state matters for interstate redress. When meta and sub-narratives in victim states do not conform with each other, framing and consensus mobilization on interstate redress is stymied. To show this, I code interstate redress in the Correlates of War data set of colony/colonizer states, and then use primary sources—interviews and school textbooks—to examine two victim states: Namibia, a 'less likely' case which has sought interstate redress, and India, a 'more likely' case which has not. Academic and policy conversations on interstate redress have thus far largely focused on perpetrator states. This not only denies victim states, most of which are developing countries, agency but skews our understanding of the phenomenon of seeking justice across international borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political economy of health inequalities and inequities in the public health care system in India and identifies potential areas for interventions to promote equal and equitable health care for marginalized people. Drawing on the Political Economy of Health Model of Research, this article reiterates the inadequacy of policy frameworks and programs in ensuring accessible, affordable, and quality public health care services to all. We argue that for policies to be successful, policymakers should consider the diverse social registries of class, caste, religion, gender, region, ethnicity, and age, as well as their intersections. We also argue that health care policies and programs need to be: (a) dynamic and flexible, (b) intersectional and backed up by sufficient grassroots research, and (c) equitable at every stage of policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of waste picking women, who have been organised by Kudumbashree, the flagship poverty alleviation programme of the state government in Kerala. The study goes through and beyond women's own narratives of their employment. What this study shows is that the women were appreciating the positive aspects of the job even in a far less than ideal objective situation '. This study brings out how the oppressed subject provides a different interpretation or lays emphasis on an aspect that is different from the aspect emphasised by an objective interpretation of a situation. The study also shows that the characterisation of poor waste picking women as a homogenous group fails to appreciate the heterogeneity in women with regard to their making the decisions, interpretations and experiences of their job. The possibilities of subject giving a positive interpretation, however, do not preclude serious questions of how Kudumbashree, the organisation of women, ironically becomes a 'ready pool of women labour' to which any kind of work, even the dirtiest one, can be assigned and how its self-help conceptualisation restricts women from demanding adequate protection and benefits, which, otherwise could be considered as their rights as sanitation workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among food practices that foster climate resilience, traditional agricultural practices of Indigenous communities have been recognized and noted in recent times. These forms of agriculture include shifting cultivation and its adaptations across communities in the tropics. However, the policy narrative around shifting cultivation is rooted in its misunderstanding, as it was once seen as primitive and backward. New research and a reinterpretation of existing research present challenges to long-held policies that have discouraged and deterred the practice of shifting cultivation. With the onset of this new narrative is a call to action that seeks a rethinking by policymakers and governance actors around the nature and merits of traditional agriculture. Through the case of Meghalaya, a small hilly state in the northeastern region of India largely inhabited by Indigenous Peoples, this commentary aims to provide the dominant narrative at the local context, evidence of the adaptations in shifting cultivation that contribute to sustainability, and the need to rethink policy relating to shifting cultivation at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's post-GFC digital financial inclusion project has been conveyed by an officially constructed polysemic narrative that connotes three distinctive semantic fields: (a) post-colonial Indian developmental policies; (b) post-GFC financialising neoliberal financial inclusion programmes; and (c) traditional Hindu religious values of money and wealth. By assembling a semiological conceptual toolbox from the works of Barthes, Eco, and Ricouer we analyse this specific phenomenon of polysemy in India's financial inclusion narrative. Based on our findings we develop an argument for a connotative approach to economic discourses as a possible alternative to metonymic understanding of the relationship between language and things in studying markets, economy, and neoliberal policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

fter a brief and pointed recapitulation of the main issues of Demuth, Chaudhary and Keller's article, Memories of me. Comparisons from Osnabrück (Germany) and Delhi (India) students and their mothers (doi:), alternative or complementary approaches to the investigation of 'doing' memory and self in different cultural contexts are outlined in a sketch of three interrelated proposals. These proposals turn around a) 'contemporaneousness of the non-contemporaneous' ( Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen) and the analysis of 'cultural hybrids', b) 'indigenous concepts of memory and self' and c) 'memory and self in actual cultural practice'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Midnight's Children allegorizes India in two ways. First, the allegory of Saleem Sinai's body speaks about the official version of India, the pedagogical nation that is modern by definition, since it aims to parade as a transcendental, seamless, and disembodied master narrative. Second, the dissonant "noise" of the midnight's children attempts to provide an alternative: their miraculous community allegorizes an enchanting yet fragile postmodern nation, which reintroduces the voice of the subject into national discourses. This second allegory depicts India as an "elephantiasic" imagined community, which, even though it aims to act as an alternative, inherits the structure of the modern nation, and falls apart precisely for this reason. Unable to redefine the modern paradigm, the novel attempts to reconcile the postmodern nation with it, which overburdens this miraculous yet feeble entity. Therefore, the post-modern nation remains an enchanting but never fulfilled promise in the novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contested historiography of the 1857 rebellion and its importance in shaping the Indian nationalist imagination make it an excellent entry point into an investigation of nationalist pasts and their archival bases. This paper examines a concatenation of influential narratives of different genres that have become critical sources for a history of the rebel leader Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and for configuring her as an icon of heroic Indian womanhood. It places each of these sources, ranging from late nineteenth-century Marathi texts to mid-twentieth-century Hindi narratives, within their specific spatio- temporal setting and highlights the contradictory regional projects underlying apparently smooth nationalist narratives. Through a close examination of the making of the Lakshmibai archive, the author argues that a consideration of the editorial and textual practices that went into the making of reliable and usable archives for a modern historiography is critical to the unpacking of nationalist historiographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's independence in 1947. a long cherished dream by the Indians, was accompanied by the vivisection of the land on the communal basis. It caused one of the greatest human convulsions. In the past one or two decades the partition has began to be probed alternatively. The focus has been shifted from the high politics of the Partition and way has been given to new perspectives largely ignored in the historical narrative. Various genres of literature are being used to fully comprehend the absurd reality of the Partition and to recover the lived experience of the people. The present paper is an attempt to recover the marginalized voices through the medium of Punjabi short story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demystifying Trans Narratives: Gender in Post Modern India attempts to demystify the term 'Trans Narrative' and introduce transgender autobiographies to both the gender marginalized as well as the mainstream heteronormative society. It is a study of the autobiographies of three transgender writers across India and attempts to focus on a renewed narratology in relation to self and body in these narratives. The omittance of trans narratives from mainstream society have functioned as an act of silencing nonconforming genders since these unconventional literatures threaten to destabilize the neat binaries of male/female and masculine/feminine. The study analyses three autobiographies by three transgender writers, namely, Laxminarayan Tripathi's Me Hijra Me Laxmi (2015), A. Revathi's Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story (2010) and Living Smile Vidya's I am Vidya (2007) and focuses on the so-called unnarratable in these narratives. By unnarratable it refers to those narratives which should not be told or mentioned because of the prevailing social conventions. During the Victorian Era, sex and private self was always the unnarratable whereas in the contemporary era, it's same-sex desire and sex change. Hence by euphemism, illusion, metaphor, and metonymy, such tabooed subjects which cannot be narrated are signified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic violence affects women globally. Domestic violence in India is embedded in structures of patriarchy, cultural norms, and a conservative social structure (Biswas, 2017). Community narratives help to create meaning and impact human behavior and can be tools of empowerment (Rappaport, 1995). They can also provide an important means of detecting changes in norms. Community engagement efforts that focus on empowering communities can play an important role in creating empowering narratives. Organizational settings like grassroots agencies can play a salient role in providing opportunities for community engagement leading to the creation of new community narratives and personal stories. This study sought to examine the work of a grassroots agency in India engaged in community action aimed at social change in the response to domestic violence, with a special focus on understanding shifting community narratives related to the response to domestic violence. Based on data from semi‐structured interviews, archival data, and participant‐observations, and using a modified‐grounded theory approach, our results identified five major themes reflecting counter narratives on domestic violence. These included (a) awareness and discourse on gender related issues, (b) framing domestic violence as a social issue, (c) supporting the empowerment of women, (d) supporting disclosure of violence, and (e) supporting intervening in cases of violence. Implications of our findings for social change work in the response to domestic violence are discussed. Highlights: Community narratives can provide an important means of detecting changes in norms.Social movements can target and change community narratives to redefine problems.Community engagement that empowers communities can create empowering narratives.This study highlights various counter narratives in the response to domestic violence.Implications for social change work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism development is a potent force of socio-economic transformation particularly in the destinations and it often consequents to irreversible changes including the stereotyping of the image. At the level of image construction, while the destination managers play key roles and pursue experimentations with alternating propositions, there also exists many cases of revealing in nature about the instrumentalities of the 'drifters' or the pioneer tourists in the making and propagation of destination imageries. The influence of the carefree Hippies of 1960s' in creating such imageries across the warmer world including in India has been such that even the destination managers had to exploit those imageries in both overt and covert manners so as to sustain the interest in the destinations. The authors make an attempt to examine the challenges of perpetuating the destination stereoptypes of Goa around the 'flower-power' of 1960's through an autobiographical narrative approach. The results make a strong case for abandoning of the stereotypes and to adapt promotional strategies by bringing Goa's innate strengths in its distinct nature and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of victims about their experiences of abuse and neglect and how therapeutic intervention encourages disclosure. Narrative accounts given by 15 Indian adolescents during therapeutic interventions were analyzed by the Descriptive-Phenomenological-Psychological Perspective, which evoked three themes. The first theme explains how coping styles and personal resources contribute to the victims' dealing with trauma. The second theme explores to whom, when, and in what circumstances victims prefer to disclose. The third theme explains how "time" is perceived in the light of trauma. Results suggest that the Indian sociocultural system acts as a mold to shape the victim's perception and belief system, and causes confusion about whether the incident was at all abusive. Initiation to help victims should come from their parents and from adult stakeholders outside the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of Policy Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article adopts an intersectional, narrative analytic framework to analyze the autobiographical narratives of five North Indian women and examines how they associate their Hindi medium education (HME) with their socioeconomic marginalization in personal and social domains. Data were collected in face-to-face interviews. Analysis of participants' stories revealed how they narratively constructed specificworldviewswithinwhich they reportedmultiple subordinations resulting from their HME, their gender, and their location in a traditional patriarchal society increasingly influenced by material considerations. The long-established practice of dowrywas re-imagined to include "good" jobs and salaries of prospective brides. These, in turn, were portrayed as crucial for successfulmarriage negotiations and for agreeable post-marital relationships. The women linked HME to an inability to secure "good" jobs and salaries and thus constructed it as saliently responsible for deepening their gender- and class-basedmarginalization. Analysis also revealed the varying degrees to which they resisted such subordinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on life history narratives of 57 women in India and interviews with 21 practitioners, we document the neglect, abuse, and instrumental deprivation of women’s rights through the process of transnational abandonment. While gendered local sociocultural milieus and economic norms contribute to these harms, they are crucially enabled and sustained by transnational formal-legal frameworks. Widening the explanatory lens for understanding domestic violence beyond the family and community, we argue that in a globalized world, (inter)state policies serve to construct these women as a subordinate category of citizens—“disposable women”—who can be abused and abandoned with impunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the construction of relations between India and Pakistan with regard to the intangible ideational forces, which add to the material side of the equation. It examines the role of ideational forces in shaping the identity, security dynamics and political relations between the two countries. The analysis detects whether the underlying factor of the conflict can be attributed to the prevalent discourse, inspired by ideology, history and concomitant with identity. Speech acts are rather important in terms of relations between countries; where a change in rhetoric may have an impact on the progression of ties. A critical discourse analysis reveals the varied ways in which the ideational factors of religion and historical experiences come into play in the states' discourse, the media narrative and the non-state actors' narrative. Analysing the ideational aspect of discourse is essential; as these narratives take the shape of policy decisions and state behaviour; they generate a continuous cycle of mistrust and animosity amid both the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]