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Freedom and Destiny: Gender, Family, and Popular Culture in India
This book engages with everyday life and popular culture in India. It seeks to subject the popular media to the sociologist's critical gaze, probing for insights and reflections on the relations of the sexes and the dynamics of family life in contemporary India.
- GenresNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
First published June 15, 2006
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June 21, 2025
A very readable study of popular culture in India in the 90s.
Uberoi provides a birds-eye view of some the key anxieties and considerations of the early days of economic liberalization in India.
She examines the cultural anxieties and negotiations prompted by the initial exposure to global media and 'western' cultural trends; specifically the ways in which mass media became a site for contestation, negotiation and re-imagining of the core institution of family.
Uberoi argues that the (Sanskritic/Brahminic) Indian 'joint family' became one of the main symbols of Indian national identity in the 90s, and the focus of exaltation, contestation and re-imagining by key social and political interests.
The Joint Family 2.0 thus re-imagined based on an idealized (Sanskitic) past (and celebrated in Barjatya films) is one that firmly privileges the interests of the family unit as a whole over that of individual BUT (its adherents aver) one that will nevertheless lead to TRUE happiness and fulfillment as long as one surrenders/ suppresses 'selfish' desires.
Women unfortunately continued to be disenfranchised under the 'new' family dynamics, their sexuality privileged over their personhood. The former was further firmly subordinated to Patriarchal authority, and comodified as a key item of exchange for cementing bonds between family units.
Uberoi provides a birds-eye view of some the key anxieties and considerations of the early days of economic liberalization in India.
She examines the cultural anxieties and negotiations prompted by the initial exposure to global media and 'western' cultural trends; specifically the ways in which mass media became a site for contestation, negotiation and re-imagining of the core institution of family.
Uberoi argues that the (Sanskritic/Brahminic) Indian 'joint family' became one of the main symbols of Indian national identity in the 90s, and the focus of exaltation, contestation and re-imagining by key social and political interests.
The Joint Family 2.0 thus re-imagined based on an idealized (Sanskitic) past (and celebrated in Barjatya films) is one that firmly privileges the interests of the family unit as a whole over that of individual BUT (its adherents aver) one that will nevertheless lead to TRUE happiness and fulfillment as long as one surrenders/ suppresses 'selfish' desires.
Women unfortunately continued to be disenfranchised under the 'new' family dynamics, their sexuality privileged over their personhood. The former was further firmly subordinated to Patriarchal authority, and comodified as a key item of exchange for cementing bonds between family units.
Displaying 1 of 1 review