A A A
Change Text Size

Mary E John

The Little Red Book of Feminism?

Vol - XLVIII No. 18, May 04, 2013 | Mary E John

Seeing Like a Feminist by Nivedita Menon (New Delhi: Zubaan and Penguin India), 2013; pp xii + 252, Rs 295.

Intersections of Gender and Caste

Vol - XLVIII No. 18, May 04, 2013 | Sharmila Rege, J Devika, Kalpana Kannabiran, Mary E John, Padmini Swaminathan, and Samita Sen

This edition focuses on the relations between caste and gender and explores the intersectionalities involved. It includes articles exploring the politics of feminism and dalit activism located in urban spaces, in working class sites, through labour, "traditional" rituals, issues of honour and inter-caste marriage.

State Policy and the Twelfth Plan through a Gender Lens

Vol - XLVII No. 17, April 28, 2012 | J Devika, Kalpana Kannabiran, Mary E John, Padmini Swaminathan, Samita Sen, and Sharmila Rege

The rapidly changing urban scenario seems to have important implications for gendering governance in Kerala. Thus, besides the different histories mediated by caste and community, the spatial location of women leaders in local governance appears to be of central importance in shaping their agency. This article which is based on the research about women leaders in local governance in Kerala in 2005-10 explores the extent to which success in local governance allowed these women entry into politics and gave them a greater presence within the public life. Generally it is seen that successful women leaders are often the bearers of a specific form of power that has been historically associated with the deployment of sentiment and affect, and ideal femininity, and that such power is understood to be crucial to local governance as well. However, an entirely different picture emerged from this study on women leaders of urban governance. Besides gentle power, successful women attribute their success equally to knowledge - of official norms and procedures.

Institutional Citizenship, Research Cultures and the State

Vol - XLVI No. 33, August 13, 2011 | Mary E John

Suboptimal funding cannot but affect the quality of research, but will more funding, as recommended by the review committee, by itself make a qualitative difference to the quality of output? What is it in institutions that fosters original research? The answer requires conceptual and historical investigations into institutional citizenship, research cultures, and the role of the State in fostering them.

Census 2011: Governing Populations and the Girl Child

Vol - XLVI No. 16, April 16, 2011 | Mary E John

The much-awaited provisional results of Census 2011 bring the news that the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has declined further from 927 to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys, due to a widening of the circle of daughter aversion, especially across western and central India. But in all the monitoring to correct this "imbalance" what place is there for a genuine engagement with the life chances of girls in diverse contexts?

The Politics of Not Counting Caste

Vol - XLV No. 25, June 19, 2010 | Mary E John and Satish Deshpande

In the debate on whether or not to count caste in the 2011 Census, there has been too little reflection on the implicit assumptions and analogies about both the census and caste that underpin the positions that have been taken. This article attempts to identify the major models that have been tacitly at work. Questioning the view that the status quo is benign or neutral, it argues that not counting caste has defeated the desire to transcend caste, and suggests that "caste blindness" be rejected in favour of a fresh beginning.

Dispensing with Daughters: Technology, Society, Economy in North India

Vol - XLIV No. 15, April 11, 2009 | Mary E John, Rajni Palriwala, Ravinder Kaur, and Saraswati Raju

A study of the micro-level experiences of families in five districts, one each in five states, some of them with the lowest child sex ratios in the country, seeks to explain the complex causes behind the declining ratios by looking at gender and family strategies, shaped by social processes in the urban and rural areas.

Reframing Globalisation: Perspectives from the Women's Movement

Vol - XLIV No. 10, March 07, 2009 | Mary E John

This is a feminist invitation to rethink the nation-to-globalisation narrative that structures prominent approaches to India's post-independence history. Exploring the question from different vantage points, it argues that the long history of the women's movement in India from the 19th century onwards has been fundamentally international in scope within which the "nation" occupied a troubled position. The more recent challenges of caste and sexuality are further reasons to question a unidimensional conceptualisation of the present. The very pressing uncertainties besetting the future of the women's movement in India - and elsewhere - would be better appreciated within a "post-national" as against a "global" conjunctural analysis.

The Business and Ethics of Surrogacy

Vol - XLIV No. 02, January 10, 2009 | Imrana Qadeer and Mary E John

The Draft Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulation Bill and Rules (2008) intends to regulate an "industry" in India that has been expanding by leaps and bounds, mainly on account of a growing demand by foreign couples in search of relatively cheap surrogacy arrangements. This commentary argues that there has been next to no public debate on the ethical, social and medical questions around infertility and surrogacy in our context, and makes a beginning in this direction. Thanks to pressure from women's groups the draft has now been placed on the web site of the Indian Council of Medical Research for comments.

Theorising the Present: Problems and Possibilities

Vol - XLIII No. 46, November 15, 2008 | Mary E John and Satish Deshpande

The usefulness or otherwise of the kind of theory that Chatterjee offers is decided by its ability to offer a symptomatic reading of significant trends and trajectories. Does the essay on democracy and economic transformation in India meet this test?