Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2024, 17:00 - 18:30 iCal

Wednesday Seminar

Urban Poverty, Public Romance and Violent Moral Policing of Lower-Class Female Youth in Mumbai (Atreyee Sen, University of Copenhagen)

Hörsaal C, Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie (NIG, 4. Stock)
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien

Vortrag

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This presentation will explore the violent moral policing and aggressive spatial marginalisation of lower-class, young lovers in Mumbai. I will interrogate contemporary local, regional and nationalist discourses propagating appropriate, honourable conduct for women in modern India, and analyse the percolation of these forms of gendered moral surveillance into urban politics. Young girls, who gain a small degree of economic freedom through low-income employment in Mumbai, are often keen to resist arranged marriages, and choose their romantic partners. However, since upper-class ‘safe’ public spaces (such as coffee shops, movie halls, shopping plazas) are not available to poor women, these young girls use open parks, street benches, public beaches and commuter bridges to kiss, cuddle and converse with their lovers. I show how neighbourhood communities, conservative nationalist groups, and local policemen concerned with ‘public pornography’, coordinate physical attacks and public shaming rituals to punish such deviant youth. I argue that this form of virtue policing is not just directed towards informally governing the morality of young girls. It is also intimately related to invisibilising and edging out women from public spaces, when they boldly display their right to love, lust and labour in the commercial city.

Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung

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Veranstalter

Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie

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Kontakt

Hanna Vietze
Institut für Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
+431427749565
hanna.vietze@univie.ac.at

Erstellt am Dienstag, 07. Mai 2024, 11:03
Letzte Änderung am Donnerstag, 23. Mai 2024, 07:28