Abstract
Over the last two decades, much has been written about India’s new middle classes and their lifestyles, but little attention has been paid to the way liberalisation policies and the attending neoliberal ideology is transforming the family. In this chapter I will discuss some of the changes pertaining to the way children are brought up in this social strata based on two decades of fieldwork in Calcutta/Kolkata, India.
This chapter provides an ethnographically based perspective on middle-class parenting and argues that where in China extensive government intervention and in Malaysia Islamist agendas frame the reordering of the social world of early childhood under processes of globalisation, in India economic liberalisation and neoliberal ideology shape the same processes. This is the case even where they are introduced as part of a right-wing Hindutva (Hindu way of life) agenda, and they affect middle-class children and their families in multiple ways. More specifically, the chapter shows how the middle-class family becomes a prime site where neoliberal values are reproduced and enacted in relation to new government agendas and economic conditions.
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Notes
- 1.
The data stems from two decades of work in Calcutta/Kolkata, India’s most Eastern metropolis. My interlocutors belong mostly to Bengali-speaking backgrounds, and my research focused on women and their families. The main bulk of my data stems from the mid-1990s to early 2000s and was collected during extended periods of fieldwork using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Some follow-up visits allowed me to update the material. I have only conducted a few interviews with staff in two schools my son attended whilst we were staying in Kolkata.
- 2.
Guilmoto summarises the debates on family change and highlights recent demographic trends (Guilmoto 2011). The shift from joint to nuclear families among a modernising urban middle class and its implications for child-rearing has been discussed in detail by Seymour in the context of 1980s urban Orissa (1999). However, pervasive economic, regional and communal differences mean that Kolkata’s Bengali-speaking middle-class families are still often adhering to patrilocality and multi-generation households.
- 3.
This is markedly different in provincial contexts, where religious and nationalist symbols may be present.
- 4.
Among middle-class women voluntary retirement schemes in the wake of liberalisation attracted working mothers: ‘A tidy sum in the form of a golden handshake, time that one could finally call one’s own, a more leisurely lifestyle and the option of working a few hours a day form the home were attractive propositions. At least the children would get better attention’ (Bose 2003).
- 5.
Allison (1991) provides an interesting comparative perspective on the compulsion to send lunchboxes with Japanese pupils. In the given context, it is the content, not the aesthetics, which serves as an indicator of identity.
- 6.
Janeja provides a detailed discussion on how ‘everyday’ food is constructed as productive of Bengali persons and culture (Janeja 2009).
- 7.
This is most obvious with reference to caste and religious community amongst Hindus, who traditionally follow strict rules where different groups are expected to be in close contact and food might therefore be contaminated. In urban, secular settings, it is common to avoid such concerns by providing less easily contaminated food stuff, including dry foods, pre-packaged foods and stick to vegetarian meals. This explains why lunchboxes of Bengali children will never contain rice, the main staple food in the family, as it is said to be easily contaminated by touch.
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Donner, H. (2018). Domesticating Markets: Early Years Education and Middle-Class Parenting in India. In: Fleer, M., van Oers, B. (eds) International Handbook of Early Childhood Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_80
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