Appropriately Indian , livre ebook

253

pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Écrit par
Radhakrishnan Smitha Radhakrishnan

Publié par
Duke University Press

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253

pages

English

Ebooks

2011

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

11 février 2011

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822393436

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Appropriately Indian is an ethnographic analysis of the class of information technology professionals at the symbolic helm of globalizing India. Comprising a small but prestigious segment of India's labor force, these transnational knowledge workers dominate the country's economic and cultural scene, as do their notions of what it means to be Indian. Drawing on the stories of Indian professionals in Mumbai, Bangalore, Silicon Valley, and South Africa, Smitha Radhakrishnan explains how these high-tech workers create a "global Indianness" by transforming the diversity of Indian cultural practices into a generic, mobile set of "Indian" norms. Female information technology professionals are particularly influential. By reconfiguring notions of respectable femininity and the "good" Indian family, they are reshaping ideas about what it means to be Indian.Radhakrishnan explains how this transnational class creates an Indian culture that is self-consciously distinct from Western culture, yet compatible with Western cosmopolitan lifestyles. She describes the material and symbolic privileges that accrue to India's high-tech workers, who often claim ordinary middle-class backgrounds, but are overwhelmingly urban and upper caste. They are also distinctly apolitical and individualistic. Members of this elite class practice a decontextualized version of Hinduism, and they absorb the ideas and values that circulate through both Indian and non-Indian multinational corporations. Ultimately, though, global Indianness is rooted and configured in the gendered sphere of home and family.

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Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

11 février 2011

EAN13

9780822393436

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

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∫2011 Duke University Press

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Typeset in Chapparel Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

For A vva, who ﬁrst inspired me to write about the everyday life that surrounds me.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

On Background

1.PRIVILEGESituating India’s Transnational Class

2.GLOBAL / INDIANCultural Politics in the IT Workplace

3.MERITIdeologies of Achievement in the Knowledge Economy87

4.INDIVIDUALSNarratives of Embedded Selves

5.FAMILYGendered ‘‘Balance’’ and the Everyday Production of the Nation145

6.RELIGIONWhen the Private Is Transnational

CONCLUSIONApolitical Politics

Notes

207

Bibliography

Index

227

215

199

115

173

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As with all long-term projects, this book has stacked up a series of intellectual and monetary debts along its way. The fact that this book draws from research conducted on three continents in ﬁve different cities expands the network of indebtedness even further. At the outset, I thank my father, B. D. Radhakrishnan, whose rich stories of the young women and men of India’s burgeoning technology industry piqued my interest in this topic as early as the mid-1990s. Thanks to his long experience in the globalitI began this industry, project with an ‘‘insider’’ view. Aside from that, my father provided me with encouragement, initial contacts for my pilot studies in Bangalore and Mumbai, and constant support, even when it became clear that my approach to the topic was clearly at odds with his own numbers-driven technical approach to problem solving and analysis. At the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, I was blessed with a dream dissertation committee. Raka Ray, my fearless chair, personal advisor, and friend provided every kind of intellectual and mental support possible, and I continue to be indebted to her for her generosity as my primary mentor in my academic career. Peter Evans encouraged me to pursue the ambitious task of ethnography on three continents and persisted in getting me to ask tough questions of my data. Gillian Hart, without whose support I never would have ventured toward South Africa, also exerted a profound intellectual inﬂuence upon me, and I am grateful for her constant support, starting from my days as an uncertain undergraduate. I have been fortunate to have always had strong funding for this project. The American Institute of Indian Studies provided support for the bulk of the research in India conducted in 2004–5. The graduate division of the University of California, Berkeley, funded the ﬁeldwork in South Africa and Silicon Valley, as well as my writing period in 2005–6. After leaving Berkeley, I had the luxury of being a part of the Global

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