Marriage, Law & the State in India
Workshop of Project A06 "Social Practices and Media Narratives of Matrimonial Decision-Making in India"
The workshop will focus on the lived practices of marriage as situations of decision-making, and gathers experts in the area of gender, kinship, and legal anthropology. Prof. Sylvia Vatuk from the University of Illinois at Chicago has engaged in a study of changing kinship, family law and its impact on marriages. Dr. Henrike Donner from the Goldsmiths University of London is an urban anthropologist who explores the interplay of gender, kinship, reproduction of class and consumption.
As the central means to find a suitable spouse, arranged marriages among Indians are still popular social experiences that involve complex processes negotiated among multiple actors. Decision-making is not reduced to individual intentions, but understood as a social practice. By casting light on the cultural contexts of thought, reason, emotion and action, our discussions seek to locate what is ‘valuable’, ‘necessary’ and ‘lawful’ and how it is mobilized in the matrimonial decision-making process. We also explore how media narratives shape and frame matrimonial choices in a culturally-diverse country such as India.
Besides exciting presentations and fruitful discussions, participants shall gain from the shared experiences and insights of these researchers. To put it simpler, the potentials of marriage-related decisions have been demonstrated, but it has yet to be realized and we would like to find out how.
Sub project A06 Social Practices and Media Narratives of Matrimonial Decision-Making in India