Brief Description
This book links caste and gender to the social production of motherhood. Dandekar argues that in contradiction to the assumption about motherhood being primarily a female-centered and positive domain, subaltern agency produces it as malign, dangerous, malevolent, and marginal.
Highlighting the manner in which the experience and expression of motherhood is constructed as androgynous and non-threatening to patriarchal hegemony, the author emphasizes the consolidation of lower caste positive identity through valorization processes and endorses high caste and class ownership and power by producing the birth and survival of a male child as its ideological validation.
Little has been written about the experiences of motherhood in India, outside of the debates around public health statistics. Here, the author reinvents and deconstructs existing notions of maternity by interrogating the very systemic and patriarchal nature of its language that depoliticizes oppression.
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Learn More about the Book
Outside of debates surrounding public health statistics, little has been written about the experience of motherhood in India. In Boundaries and Motherhood, Deepra Dandekar argues that contrary to the assumption that motherhood is primarily female-centered and positive, maternity is characterized by many as dangerous, malevolent, and marginal. By highlighting the manner in which the experience and expression of motherhood is constructed in India, Dandekar emphasizes its relationship to caste identity.
Dandekar deconstructs existing notions of maternity by interrogating the very systemic and patriarchal nature of its language. The author also examines the caste system and how it complicates Indian understandings of motherhood. Boundaries and Motherhood is deeply researched and will engage scholars in both sociology and gender studies.
About the Author
Deepra Dandekar is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
