Becoming men in a modern city : masculinity, migration and globalization in North India / by Harjant S. Gill (original) (raw)
Related papers
Success, masculinity and international migration: the case of Punjab, India
Sikh Formations, 2019
Harjant Gill, in the documentary film, Sent Away Boys, explores connections between Jat Sikh masculinity, success and international migration to the West. The film is part of a series on masculinity. Roots of Love and Mardistan precede this one. All three films examine Jat Sikh masculinity, but each is distinct in its focus on its particular dimension. Here, I review them with special attention to Sent Away Boys. I integrate scholarship that have reflected on this topic. Additionally, I relate my current research on the subject and my prior research on immigrant Sikh yellow cabbies in New York City.
Men and Masculinities , 2012
In this article, the author examines the challenges to masculinity prompted by migration from the Northeast frontier of India to the capital city Delhi. Northeast India has been characterized by insurgency, counterinsurgency, and ethno-nationalism since Indian Independence in 1947. In this militarized environment, masculinity has been shaped by historical constructions of a warrior past fused with contemporary constructions based on ethno-nationalism and armed struggle. A dramatic increase in migration out of the region by young men and women to the urban centers of India to work in the retail and call center industries poses a major challenge as it ruptures the masculine norms of home. In response, men attempt to enforce these masculine norms with varied results. At the same time, new expressions of masculinity are evolving alongside conventional expressions demonstrating the fluidity of masculinity even among men from a region where masculine norms appear rigid.
Militarization of Sikh Masculinity
Critically reading the theoretical and descriptive scholarly work on colonial Punjab, Sikhs, Sikhism and the imperial British Empire, this paper traces how the formation of Sikh martial masculinity rooted in religious tradition was institutionalized into a particular form of militarized masculinity in the colonial period in Punjab, India. Additionally, it explores how the historical construction of masculinity intersects with the contemporary discourses on Sikh identity and masculinity in the diaspora, specifically in Britain. With reference to British Sikhs and their project of reclaiming recognition of their contribution in WWI, the paper goes on to argue that perhaps the projection of Khalsa identity as synonymous with Sikh identity and the performance of Sikh masculinity lies in projecting and representing themselves as warriors, to seek legitimacy from the military of their masculinity in exhibiting war effort. The dominant perception of Sikhs as martial, brave and willing to sacrifice is reflected in popular culture at large. By extension and association, Punjab, seen as the homeland of Sikhs, finds itself venerated as the land of the brave, or the land of the lions, if you like. This idea of the Sikh identity and Sikh masculinity in particular is a very real form of consciousness which defines, shapes and configures Sikh masculinity and performance of the male self, and are ideas in which many Sikh men root their identity. As I have argued elsewhere, this particular masculine performance does draw its strength from religious rituals and practices. 1 It might not
Unhappy Husbands: Masculinity and Migration in Transnational Pakistani Marriages
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2005
This article, based on fieldwork in the Pakistani Punjab and with predominantly Punjabi families in Bristol, is concerned with the common practice of British Pakistanis marrying Pakistani nationals. Informants stress the risks that such marriages hold for women, but this research highlights the social, cultural, and economic difficulties faced by migrant husbands, comparing their position to that of the ghar damad (house son-in-law). Whilst women are instructed from a young age on the adjustments the move to their husband's household will entail, male migrants are often unprepared for this situation. A lack of local kin support can combine with the culturally unusual proximity of the wife's family to restructure gendered household relations of power. Frustrations experienced by such men may help to explain instances where such marriages have ended in the husband's violence, desertion, or taking a second wife, but the model of the unhappy ghar damad is also significant in understanding the experiences of many other migrant men and their British wives.
Diaspora as a Spectrum: Punjabi-Sikh Subjects and the Gendered Context of Diaspora Membership
The shift away from population group (i.e. South Asian) and toward subjects (i.e. the model immigrant) is one possible pathway to the careful study of the context of diaspora. In this chapter, I argue that the context of the Punjabi-Sikh diaspora in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is a spectrum of variegated memberships and self-perceptions of belonging that are inherently gendered. In my ethnographic research on transnational marriages and their breakdown, I discern three discrete yet overlapping subjectivities: the model immigrant and the multicultural citizen; the transnational competitive migrant; and, finally, the trans-local and sovereign subject. Through this spectrum of diaspora membership, I conduct a close analysis of gendered subjectivities in relation to their corresponding configurations of power in marriage and its breakdown. First, I provide overviews of the fieldwork, data, and subject groups the chapter is based on, and then I proceed to discuss local and transnational understandings of marriage and marriage breakdown. Then I discuss the spectrum of diaspora membership, addressing marriage and its breakdown in relation to the three above-mentioned groupings respectively.
Ethnography, 2020
This article explores what it means to be a Punjabi Sikh man in an era of transnational migration. I look at how Sikh men from India access global migrant flows and negotiate the formal and informal sets of requirements for moving across national boundaries. Upon learning that different travel itineraries necessitate different embodied practices, what kinds of transformations do migrant men undergo? In anticipation of transnational travel, Sikh migrants often cut their hair. Yet, many continue wearing their turbans from time to time, especially when returning to their familial homes in rural Punjab. Detached from its traditional association with Kesh (unshorn hair), the turban as mobilized by Sikh migrant men no longer simply represents an emblem of Sikh identity. Rather it operates as a flexible symbol of cultural citizenship and gendered belonging, an integral part of the process by which these migrants reincorporate themselves into the landscape of their homeland.
Religions
This paper discusses the impact of immigration policies on the ways young undocumented Sikh migrants in Paris negotiate their masculinity. The current criminalization of labor migration from the global South in Europe is disrupting long established patterns of upward mobility through international migration, that entailed remitting money home, getting married and reuniting with one’s family in the host country and moving up the socio-professional ladder from low-paid jobs to self employment. Instead, the life of an increasing number of Sikh migrants in France and elsewhere is marked by irregular status and socio-economic vulnerability. In this context, undocumented Sikh migrants try to assert their gender identity in multiple ways, characterized by homosociality, the importance of manual labor, specific forms of male sociability marked by the cultivation of their body, while remaining firmly grounded in a Sikh/Panjabi religious universe through seva (voluntary service) and gurdwara ...
Making Men in the City: Articulating Masculinity and Space in Urban India
2016
In my dissertation, I illustrate the way in which processes in contemporary urban India structure the making/ unmaking of gendered identities for young men in a working class, scheduled caste neighborhood in the western Indian city of Pune. Present day Pune, an aspiring metropolis, presents a complex socio-spatial intersection of neoliberal processes and peculiar historical trajectories of caste exclusion; this dissertation seeks to highlight how socio-spatial dynamics of the city produce and sustain gendered identities and inequalities in Pune, a city hitherto neglected in academic research. Also, my focus on young men’s gendered identities speaks to a growing recognition that men need to be studied in gendered terms, as ‘men,’ in order to understand fully the dimensions of gendered inequalities and violence prevalent in South Asian cities today. I follow the lives of young men between 16 and 30 in a neighborhood in the eastern part of Pune, who belong to a scheduled caste called M...
The Punjabi Jatt Hero And Other Toxic Masculinities In Punjabi Culture
URI, 2020
In the present day, the term 'toxic masculinity' may be understood as a form of regressive, violent and abusive behaviour exhibited by men. There are a number of psychological ingredients that form a part of this dangerous concoction such as emotional detachment, aggression, intimidation, violence and a lot more. It is fairly important to understand that toxic masculinity does not define what men are but describes what men do. Thus, it is not a biological trait inherent in men from birth. It is a social construct, which reaffirms the often quoted cliché phrase, 'gender is a social construct'. Toxic masculinity also affects men. In an article published by Feminism in India in 2016, the author had succinctly described some of the ways in which toxic masculinity adversely affects men. And in this article, we try to explore the forms of toxic masculinity in the Punjabi culture, something that is evident from a critical analysis of Punjabi traditional dance forms like Bhangra and Giddha along with other media genres like films, songs etc. A few additional examples might reveal a number of toxic qualities of hegemonic masculinity that Punjabi men exhibit. These could be like having a 'gym body', being the 'owner of his wife' and stripping the woman of her sexuality to an extent that a mere mention of her name shall be regarded as an act of debauchery.