Social Trends, Vol. 01, No. 01

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://ir.nbu.ac.in/handle/123456789/3480

EDITORIAL NOTE

It is indeed a matter of great satisfaction and pride that the annual journal of our Department Social Trends is going to see the light of the day soon. It required a bit of stretching of our capacity to have this happen but there is no denying the fact that we can move forward only by stretching out limits. Now that the first number of the first volume is out we would be facing the challenge of not only keeping it afloat but also raise the standard of the journal. With collective efforts on the part of faculty, scholars and friends we would face whatever challenges that come by our way.
We see Social Trends as a good platform for the young scholars where they can try their hands in scholarly writing and gain experience and confidence, which would help them in growing as mature scholars in future. The idea behind the title of the journal is that in a given point in time we go through multiple trends of social change and transformation, only a few of them are articulated in social science language. The task of the social scientists in the given circumstances is to articulate the trends that are not yet articulated. Another reality is that there are always ‘trends’ and not ‘a trend’ of social transformation; such trends are not only multidimensional and multidirectional they could often be conflicting in nature. As an illustration, while masculinisation of family by the practice of female foeticide is captured as a dominant trend the counter trend of parents living for their daughters is also a reality in urban India.
The papers in this number are the outcome of a national seminar we had organised in the Department in 2012 under the DRS –I (SAP) of the UGC. Dr. Saswati Biswas deserves special credit for organising the seminar and for putting efforts to collect complete revised papers from the paper presenters. The papers address gender question from a feminist perspective.
We would thank the members of the Advisory Committee of the journal for their kind consent to be the members of the Committee. We would look forward to their critical constructive suggestions in raising the standard of the journal.

Sanjay K. Roy




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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Footloose and Fragmented: A Sociological Discourse on the Female Domestic Labour Migration out of Bengal
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Chatterjee, Aparna
    In India and in any other developing countries one of the side effects of unprecedented population growth and lack of growth in formal industrial sector is rapid increase in internal migratory movement. Almost all Indian women migrate at least once in their life when they leave their natal home after marriage. As a footloose commodity in the labour market, female work forces a far more critical estrangement. Migration as a transforming experience can improve or worsen the position of women in families and society. The consequent feeling of insecurity and loneliness rings with a hopeless fear of losing their dignity and control over their bodies. This paper seeks to explore, with sociological inputs, the locations and dislocations of the female labour force, which is in the constant flux of migration out of Bengal.
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    Women in Education and Bureaucracy: A Case Study of Sikkim
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Thapa, Sandhya
    The greater access to higher education and larger and effective participation in the decision making process are widely considered the effective means of women’s empowerment. In Sikkim, the author observes, the literacy rate and access to higher education among women has risen sharply in the recent years, in research and teaching profession the women have almost caught up with the men, but the participation of women in bureaucracy, particularly in higher bureaucracy, is abysmally low.
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    Gender Issues in International Trade and Investment: A Brief Review
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Chakraborty, Gangotri
    Although globalisation and international trade are generally taken as gender neutral these forces can have an adverse impact on gender equality. This paper explores how gender roles and relations change at the time of rapid economic transformation, prompted by globalisation.
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    Social Medicine: Its Implications for Women’s Health in India
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Biswas, Saswati
    In this paper an attempt has been made to study the implications of social medicine for women’s health in India. The paper focuses on how social conditions play an important role in determining health conditions of women in India. It also highlights the consequences of a market oriented health care system for women’s health in general and its possible implications for women’s health in India.
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    Re-thinking Dalit Women in Post-colonial India
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Ray, Antara
    Historically, women in general and of India in particular are persistently exploited, victimized and discriminated. Dalit women being dalit and women at the same time are located in a ‘place’ where the systemic as well as patriarchal forces, both from without and within, work to make their subjugation perpetual. The paper gives a social narrative of the saga of dalit women in Post-colonial India.
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    Questioning the ‘Superwoman’: Gender Image portrayal in Indian Mainstream Media since 1990’s
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Ghosh, Molly
    This paper highlights how a new stereotyped image of an individual Indian woman is projected in the mainstream media and the way this redefined image becomes a convenient site for negotiation between the traditional past and the contemporary market driven society. It also calls this homogenous feminine image a myth and shows how large sections of women remain outside this new image. The objective is to raise a question whether media is just reasserting the interplay of neo-liberal and patriarchal values or contributing to any meaningful empowerment of women.
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    Conceptualizing Women’s Empowerment: Theoretical Parameters and their Interplays
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Dey, Sourav Madhur
    This paper begins from the understanding that women's empowerment is inescapably bound up with the condition of disempowerment. It is about a process of change by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such ability.
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    Women’s Economic Security and Property Rights: Some Current Issues
    (University of North Bengal, 2014-03) Roy Mukherjee, Sanchari
    While it has long been recognised within the gender discourse that the perpetuation of unequal property structures stems from the need for patriarchal institutions to exercise power over land both as a productive resource and as well as a store of wealth, the legal literature on property rights generally leaves the gender characteristics of property rights undefined, thus failing to recognise that intrahousehold inequalities in property rights impinge upon the distribution of rights and responsibilities within and also without the household. The paper tracks down how property rights issue has largely been neglected in gender discourse and charts out how the issue could be reinstated at the centre of women’s movement.