"My Honor Will Be Erased": Working-Class Women, Purchasing Power, and the Perils of Modernity in Urban Nepal.
Urbanization, the expansion of capitalist markets, and the rapid democratization of the political sphere have precipitated enormous shifts in Nepal's social organization, including how women from diverse caste and ethnic backgrounds participate in the newly monetized economy as laborers and consumer...
| Publicado en: | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 485 - 508 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Chicago Press
Winter2017
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=120019061&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 120019061 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00979740 SIG jtl: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society issn: 00979740 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Winter2017 vid: 42 iid: 2 pid: 415 pub: University of Chicago Press artinfo: ui: 120019061 10.1086/688187 ppf: 485 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 120019061 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 120019061 tig: atl: "My Honor Will Be Erased": Working-Class Women, Purchasing Power, and the Perils of Modernity in Urban Nepal. aug: au: Grossman-Thompson, Barbara affil: Department of International StudiesCalifornia State University Long Beach su: Nepal Working class women Women's wages Women Consumption (Economics) Social conditions of women Purchasing power Women consumers sug: subj: Working class women Women's wages Women Consumption (Economics) Social conditions of women Nepal Purchasing power Women consumers ab: Urbanization, the expansion of capitalist markets, and the rapid democratization of the political sphere have precipitated enormous shifts in Nepal's social organization, including how women from diverse caste and ethnic backgrounds participate in the newly monetized economy as laborers and consumers. Young working-class Nepali women have unprecedented access to disposable income. With their wages, they enjoy expanded purchasing power and, through consumption practices, craft their identity as modern commodity consumers. At the same time, as participants in the public sphere of wage labor, working-class women are deeply aware of the social risks they are taking as publicly visible women. These risks include being labeled "over-modern" and "open"—descriptors with undertones of sexual immorality. "Open" women are subject to gossip, ridicule, and other forms of gender-based social and sexual violence. Drawing on twenty months of ethnographic research conducted with one group of young working-class women—female trekking guides—I contextualize my informants' experiences of wage earning and consumption. I explore the justifications my informants use to legitimate the pleasure they take in commodity consumption as well as the strategies they deploy to counter negative stereotypes associated with their status as public women. I end with a discussion of anxiety as a productive force in the lives of my informants and show how tensions between the pleasures of purchasing power and the perils of being labeled "over-modern" bracket their experiences of day-to-day living. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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