Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 137-142, February 2024.
Amrita Basu and Tanika Sarkar (Eds.), Women, Gender and Religious Nationalism. Cambridge University Press, 2022, 360 pages (Hardbound). ISBN 978-1009123143.
Book review: Fearless Freedom
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 133-137, February 2024.
Kavita Krishnan, Fearless Freedom. Penguin, 2020, 264 pages (e-book).ISBN 978-0143444688.
Kavita Krishnan, Fearless Freedom. Penguin, 2020, 264 pages (e-book).ISBN 978-0143444688.
The Impact of COVID on Kerala Fish-vending Women
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 61-84, February 2024.
This article discusses women’s role in Kerala’s small-scale marine fishing industry and changes that took place during COVID-19. Pandemic conditions enabled and accelerated the restructuring of Kerala’s fishing industry practices, leaving marginal groups even more marginal. Small-scale producers and sellers were edged out by larger players in a new wholesale market. Meanwhile, female vendors who utilised public transport and face-to-face sales methods found themselves locked out from new retail methods introduced during the pandemic, which made use of smartphone apps, online platforms, and private light vehicles. Underemployed workers with access to digital technology and mobility moved in to fill the lockdown retail gap. The Gulf states’ continuing squeeze on jobs and resultant migration slow-down contributed to these trends. Female fish-vending activity has also been affected by Kerala’s acceleration of bourgeois respectability norms. The state government’s modernisation and centralisation policies also led to the shrinking of women’s spaces in fish auction markets. Recent inequalities in digital and mobility access sit on top of longstanding entrenched class and status inequities and conservative gender norms, while the enduring chronic ‘wicked problem’ of Kerala’s unemployment levels demands urgent attention.
This article discusses women’s role in Kerala’s small-scale marine fishing industry and changes that took place during COVID-19. Pandemic conditions enabled and accelerated the restructuring of Kerala’s fishing industry practices, leaving marginal groups even more marginal. Small-scale producers and sellers were edged out by larger players in a new wholesale market. Meanwhile, female vendors who utilised public transport and face-to-face sales methods found themselves locked out from new retail methods introduced during the pandemic, which made use of smartphone apps, online platforms, and private light vehicles. Underemployed workers with access to digital technology and mobility moved in to fill the lockdown retail gap. The Gulf states’ continuing squeeze on jobs and resultant migration slow-down contributed to these trends. Female fish-vending activity has also been affected by Kerala’s acceleration of bourgeois respectability norms. The state government’s modernisation and centralisation policies also led to the shrinking of women’s spaces in fish auction markets. Recent inequalities in digital and mobility access sit on top of longstanding entrenched class and status inequities and conservative gender norms, while the enduring chronic ‘wicked problem’ of Kerala’s unemployment levels demands urgent attention.
Book review: Pamela Philipose, A Boundless Fear Gripped Me: How the Other Half Lived in the Pandemic’s Shadow
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 126-129, February 2024.
Pamela Philipose, A Boundless Fear Gripped Me: How the Other Half Lived in the Pandemic’s Shadow. Yoda Press, 2023, 109 pages, ₹258 (Paperback). ISBN 978-9-38-257988-5.
Pamela Philipose, A Boundless Fear Gripped Me: How the Other Half Lived in the Pandemic’s Shadow. Yoda Press, 2023, 109 pages, ₹258 (Paperback). ISBN 978-9-38-257988-5.
Book review: Nazia Akhtar, Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 142-145, February 2024.
Nazia Akhtar, Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose. Orient Blackswan & The New India Foundation, 2022, 432 pages, ₹995. ISBN: 978-9354420641.
Nazia Akhtar, Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose. Orient Blackswan & The New India Foundation, 2022, 432 pages, ₹995. ISBN: 978-9354420641.
New Resources
Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 146-149, February 2024.
Book Review: The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
Book Review: Paul Roquet’s The Immersive Enclosure
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
From fan citizenship to ‘fanspiracies’: Politics and participatory cultures in times of crisis?
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
Fan practices and behaviours have increasingly moved beyond fan communities into the political, economic and cultural structures of every day life. The proliferation of social media platforms has allowed both the progressive and reactionary aspects of fandom to converge in the public sphere, drawing on similar techniques, pleasures, and practices in order to interpret the world in a culture where the boundaries between popular and political communication are blurrier than they have ever been. This special issue of Convergence explores the synergies, tensions and conflicts at play in this new cultural terrain. It explores how ‘fan studies can be used to make sense of the seeming growth of conspiracy theory communities and right-wing movements, examines political participation as a form of fandom, and the ways in which social media can be used to organize against discriminatory cultures.
Fan practices and behaviours have increasingly moved beyond fan communities into the political, economic and cultural structures of every day life. The proliferation of social media platforms has allowed both the progressive and reactionary aspects of fandom to converge in the public sphere, drawing on similar techniques, pleasures, and practices in order to interpret the world in a culture where the boundaries between popular and political communication are blurrier than they have ever been. This special issue of Convergence explores the synergies, tensions and conflicts at play in this new cultural terrain. It explores how ‘fan studies can be used to make sense of the seeming growth of conspiracy theory communities and right-wing movements, examines political participation as a form of fandom, and the ways in which social media can be used to organize against discriminatory cultures.
Collaboration, reinvented tools and specialist knowledge: Communication professionals’ experiences of global health crisis management
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Communication professionals have a paramount role in global crisis. What did they learn during the covid pandemic that could be used in future global crisis? The aim of this article is to identify and analyze strategy changes among communicators in municipalities and how their conceptions of communicated knowledge transformed during the pandemic. Retrospective interviews and textual material are analyzed with a framework of Mediated Discourse Analysis in combination with Legitimation Code Theory. The analysis shows that the work of the communicators was characterized by collaboration with other professional groups and the civil society, and that the complexity and important time aspects during this crisis gave birth to semi-new, reinvented, discursive tools in the shape of text genres. The communicators’ conceived relevant knowledge as concept-driven and developed the conception that conveyance of knowledge should be thoroughly planned in a way that takes complexity into account.
Communication professionals have a paramount role in global crisis. What did they learn during the covid pandemic that could be used in future global crisis? The aim of this article is to identify and analyze strategy changes among communicators in municipalities and how their conceptions of communicated knowledge transformed during the pandemic. Retrospective interviews and textual material are analyzed with a framework of Mediated Discourse Analysis in combination with Legitimation Code Theory. The analysis shows that the work of the communicators was characterized by collaboration with other professional groups and the civil society, and that the complexity and important time aspects during this crisis gave birth to semi-new, reinvented, discursive tools in the shape of text genres. The communicators’ conceived relevant knowledge as concept-driven and developed the conception that conveyance of knowledge should be thoroughly planned in a way that takes complexity into account.