Articles by 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.

The last 20 years have witnessed an extraordinary proliferation of "big questions" as the older certitudes have broken down one by one. Whether it be the nature of development, the structure of politics or the rise of new kinds of social identities, recent events are making it evident that the social sciences are as yet unable to adequately interpret contemporary history. The issue then is one that almost never gets addressed: How do we turn events and questions into a meaningful and researchable agenda?

On the occasion of an international conference on women's and gender studies in Asia hosted by the Kartini Network of Women's and Gender Studies Institutes in Asia and the Centre for Gender Studies, Dalian University, China in September 2004, an interview was arranged between feminists from India and Li Xiaojiang, currently the director of gender studies at Dalian University. Li Xiaojiang is one of the founders of women's studies in China and has written widely on the subject of women and feminism. The following excerpts from the interview address the location of women in China and India, theories of women and feminism, problems of translation, and approaches to globalisation.

This paper examines the conflict over and opposition to reserved seats during the preindependence decades of the 20th century and its Constitutional resolution as critical inputs to the 1990s. The history of reservations in India is also centrally about caste and communalism. Though these issues were sought to be resolved at moments which had a direct bearing on women's rights, we have yet to understand the implications that these conjunctures hold for feminist politics.

Some Reflections on the Constitutive Role of Contexts Mary E John The ideologies of globalisation and structural adjustment seek to make one deaf to the immediate past and to anything that does not speak in the language of efficiency. However, the contemporary changes overtaking us, disturbing as they are, also hat hour the possibility of bringing our political and intellectual engagements on to new and fruitful terrain. For those who have been working at the interface of gender and development, it is time to refigure their priorities, not by secluding themselves within some putative 'pure' economy, but by broadening feminist conceptions of the economy itself Rescuing the notion of gender from its ritualistic incantations and making it really work for a more emancipatory and inclusive social order is one of the ways open to them, one they have every reason to take.