narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

2000) but also generally an individualist and instrumental mode of being, irrespective of
its plausibility or desirability (Budgeon, 2011: 138). This hegemonic privileging is
troubling as it denies the discursive construction of the self and presupposes a
coherent, unified, authentic self (Leahy, 1994). It also promotes through this neo-liberal
ideology “an exaggerated emphasis on change rather than continuity which conceals
stability (or worsening of the position of women)” (Baker, 2008: 62 cited in Budgeon,
2011: 133). As Foucault argues, the creation of the individual is one of modern power’s
primary effects (2003: 30). Therefore by participating in a culture of selfhood that incites
women to construct themselves as self-determining subjects whose choices reflect their
‘true self’ and which are considered not the outcomes of insidious forms of governance,
women are subjected to more subtle forms of subordination and modern power
(Budgeon, 2011: 133; Bartky, 1990). Similarly I argue that Pushpa’s to Shanta’s to
Priya’s times cannot be argued to be increasingly becoming more liberal and
necessarily liberating. The following narratives will trouble the so far analyzed linearity
of time and intimacy. They would demand a more nuanced analysis of contradictory
subjectivities (Leahy, 1994) that problematize a simplistic understanding of choice,
agency and self-determination.
Shanta’s Contradictory Subjectivity:
Hinting at her daughter’s decision to marry her friend in college, who is with her in the
same department and three months younger to her, Shanta says,
“The girls and boys of these days seem to make very hasty and ‘impulsive
decisions’ in love. I keep telling Priya that at her age, people become emotionally
blind and often make mistakes. I mean you also have to see the other things. For
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