Reassembling intimate spheres in rurban areas of contemporary India: Relationships of care in societies on the move

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K03040
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology
• Research Institution: National Museum of Ethnology (2017); Osaka University (2015-2016)
• Principal Investigator: Tokita Yumiko 国立民族学博物館, グローバル現象研究部, 外来研究員 (30452444)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: インド / 親密圏 / ケア / 家族 / 親族 / 女性 / ラーバン

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research examined the emergent meanings of being kin in so-called "rurban" areas in coastal Odisha, India. By rurban, I refer to the newly developing residential areas spatially located in between rural and urban zones, where norms, values, and practices of the village and the city meet to create hybrid meanings of personhood, marriage, family, and ageing in contemporary India. I explored the creative ways in which rurban people build new relationships of care that adhere to neither traditional family norms nor patterns of a modern nuclear family. Through extensive fieldwork, I investigated how migration into rurban areas empowers women and the socially vulnerable to negotiate and resist marginalization, and opens up spaces for new affective relationships that are not dictated by obligations of blood and affinal ties.

Free Research Field

文化人類学