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

of feminist knowledge within post-colonial situations like that in Bengal and make it
trans-nationally responsive, relational and more politically appreciative of issues of
affinity and difference. This critical dialoguing with a focus on the multiple relations
power in terms of gender, race, class, nationality and sexuality, with which my research
question is inseparable; is theoretically and epistemologically cross disciplinary but
definitely not non-sociological. A contribution to the sociology of Bengal in this context is
made by this research’s ability to incorporate into the discipline of sociology; the
sociology of post-colonial history, post-colonial feminism and post-structural discursivity
which, I argue, are already sociological. This is evident in ‘interpretivist’ and
‘interactionist’ sociology that appreciate a) mutual co-constitution of self and society
(Mead, 1934) and the social and the cultural through inter-personal interactions (Hall,
1997b: 223); and b) narrative identity formation through an emphasis on meaning,
action and dialogue between structure and agency (Somers, 1994: 614)
The following section will interlink the postcolonial with the post-structural and connect
this to interactionist feminism in order to sociologically ground the central research
question. In doing this, it will delineate from an otherwise wide ranging meaning of poststructuralism,
those aspects of Foucauldian post-structuralism that have relevance for a
politics of difference but that have been made useful by incorporating within its fold,
feminists’ concern with gender and interactionism’s focus on the everyday processes of
meaning-making. This focus on interactionism and its associated understanding of
feminism shares common sociological concerns with post-structuralist discursivity.
These are Herbert Blumers’s (1969) three basic principles of interaction: people act on
the basis of meanings, these meanings emerge from everyday interaction with others,
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