Book review: gender and violence in the Middle East by Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiqi

Fatima Sadiqi’s edited volume on the relationship between gender and violence in the Middle East breaks down stereotypes and presents innovative ways to judge the issues at hand, as reviewed by Asiya Islam

Book review: postcolonial media culture in Britain by Rosalind Brunt and Rinella Cere

Postcolonial Media Culture in Britain is a refreshing and interesting text that introduces readers to postcolonial theory using the context of British media culture in ethnic minority communities to explain key ideas and debates. Asiya Islam is concerned that the book lacks a detailed exploration of gender-specific issues, but applauds it for taking on important under-discussed topics

Becoming ‘working’ women: formations of gender, class, and caste in urban India

This paper explores the value of Skeggs’ Formations of Class and Gender for the study of changing social relations amidst rapid socio-economic change in post-liberalisation India. The paper is based on insights and reflections from long-term ethnographic research with young lower middle class women in Delhi, employed in the emerging services sector. For these young women, ‘working’ is not merely an activity, it is an identity. And employment is not merely a source of income, it is a site for renegotiation of social relations. As they traverse between home, work, and leisure, their new subjectivities come under contestations. In conversations, young women readily talk about gender and class, but are relatively silent about caste, even though it plays out in subtle ways in the workplace and more generally in their everyday lives. This context throws up a set of new questions in relation to Formations – Can we understand the entanglements of gender, class, and caste in the same way that Skeggs proposes the inextricability of gender and class? What, if any, are the differences between respectability, honour, and prestige? Does a Bourdieusian framework open up or limit the avenues of analysis for this context? Engaging with these questions, this paper demonstrate the wide-ranging appeal of Skeggs’ astute thinking in Formations of Class and Gender and brings it into dialogue with Global South feminist scholarship

A woman’s job: making middle lives in new India

In this excerpt from A Woman’s Job: Making Middle Lives in New India, Asiya Islam examines the lives of educated young women working in precarious jobs in Delhi’s service sector. The book’s rich ethnography explores how these women navigate work, home life, gender norms and class dynamics amidst socio-economic transformation and globalisation. A Woman’s Job: Making Middle Lives in New India. Asiya Islam. Cambridge University Press. 2024

'Not just a housewife': Gender, Class, and Labour in the New Economy of Urban India

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of young lower middle class women’s engagement in the new service economy in Delhi, India. Following the economic restructuring of the 1990s, the emergence of a ‘New Middle Class’ in urban India has been widely and popularly noted. The newness of this middle class, scholars have argued, is based on the emergence of ‘modern’ lifestyles, characterised by new multinational jobs, new consumption of global goods, and indeed new behaviours and attitudes. The salience of gender in the formation of this New Middle Class has been highlighted through studies of middle class women’s entry into higher education and skilled service work. In this thesis, I explore the emergence of women’s employment as a practice of class ‘distinction’. I focus specifically on the lower middle classes, where gender and class relations are particularly subject to change, conflict, and contestations. In a ‘liminal’ position as neither working class nor securely middle class, young women gain entry into low-level service work in cafés, call centres, malls, and offices, rejecting the alternative trajectory of getting married and being ‘just a housewife’. Conscious of their lack of capital, they undertake skills training and mould their ‘habitus’ to mediate belonging in the new economy. However, these negotiations accrue costs over time, resulting in their movement in and out of precarious employment. These ethnographic findings fracture the singularity of the narrative of women’s ‘aspirations’ in the new economy, instead highlighting that young lower middle class women are ambivalent about their employment. Through narrative analysis that emphasises the inseparability of relations of class and gender, the thesis contributes towards nuancing the theory of ‘distinction’, suggesting that the process of seeking distinction for those in liminal positions is characterised by both pleasures and injuries in the context of socio-economic change.Gates Cambridge scholarshi

Application of Quality of Experience in Networked Services: Review, Trend & Perspectives

Full text embargoed until 17.10.2019 (publisher's embargo period, 12 months

Book review: blogistan: the internet and politics in Iran

Asiya Islam reviews a book on the special significance of blogging in Iran, concluding it is a must read for those interested in the Middle East, media studies or free speech

Book Review: Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici

Silvia Federici’s book – Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women – published by PM Press in 2018, is a collection of essays split into two parts. Part I comprises essays about witch-hunting in Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries and Part II offers a contemporary and global view of witch-hunting. The volume is brought together with a composite introduction and conclusion. The question ‘Why now?’ is answered primarily through the two essays in Part II, which develop the case for historicising the current surge in violence against women in Mexico, India, and parts of Africa, countries that have in recent years been subject to the pressures of global capitalism

'Two hours extra for working from home': Reporting on gender, space, and time from the Covid-field of Delhi, India

This article explores, through the case study of Prachi, a young woman working for an e- commerce company in Delhi, India, the immediate and potential long-term gendered implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. While one of the more ‘privileged’ workers who did not lose her job during the crisis, Prachi had to suddenly and swiftly adapt to the practice of ‘work-from-home’. As a neophyte service worker with very limited infrastructure for working at home, Prachi experienced deterioration in her physical and mental health. While working long hours to keep her family afloat during this difficult time, she also had to negotiate the compulsion to participate in housework. Her employers’ distrust and increased surveillance has left her feeling vulnerable, particularly as a woman whose work is not given due recognition in the organisation. Prachi’s account highlights that although the practice of work-from-home affords flexibility to workers, it can also result in the exacerbation of inequalities. This article outlines the need for closer examination of the gendered implications of work transitions during the pandemic

Plastic Bodies: Women Workers and Emerging Body Rules in Service Work in Urban India

Drawing upon the narratives of young lower middle class women employed in cafes, call centres, shopping malls, and offices in Delhi, this paper identifies malleability or ‘plasticity’ of the body as an important feature of contemporary service work. As neophyte service professionals, young women mould themselves to the middle/upper class milieu of their workplaces through clothes, makeup, and body language. Such body plasticity can be experienced as enabling – identifying with the image of the ‘New Indian Woman’, young women enter the bourgeoning service economy. However, they also experience this body plasticity as threatening – bodily changes to meet the requirements of work can, at times, feel inauthentic as well as be read as promiscuous by others. This paper draws attention to how women appraise plastic bodies as both generative of change and a site of labour discipline, thus offering insights into the relationship between bodies, social inequalities, and contemporary service work.Gates Cambridge Scholarshi