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The paper is an ethnographic study examining the gendering of jewellery production in the villages of Medinipur, West Bengal, India. The jewellery (primarily hand woven silver chains) is marketed nationally and internationally and the villages are linked to the domestic and the global markets through a series of subcontractors. The paper is a critical analysis and deconstruction of the gendered division of labour where women's work in chain-weaving is constructed as 'leisure activity', requiring little training and carried out at home. The women are rendered invisible as workers through the discursive practices of control over their sexuality, restricting their mobility geographically and in the job hierarchy, and earn a low average wage of INR 1.35/hour for chain-weaving. Men engage in the soldering and finishing of chains, which is constructed as 'tough', requiring long training, carried out in the visible spaces of the workshops and are paid an average wage of INR 5/hour. The discourses feed into the subjective identities of men as bread-winners and constitute women as housewives. However, women challenge the construction of chain-weaving as 'leisure'. In their affirmation of chain-weaving as 'work' they present a fragmentation to their subjective identities as housewives and navigate their paradoxical situation; an ambivalence created by what they do, how they view what they do and how they are viewed in doing it. In addition, some women cross the gendered division of labour and engage in soldering, thus challenging its construction as particularly 'tough' for women. Although how this disruption is currently negotiated mutes its resistive effect, the fact of it has created new discursive practices by which the crossing of the gendered divide is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses some fundamental aspects of the circulation of knowledge connected with the spread of the first global model of school management and classroom organisation in the early nineteenth century: the so-called “monitorial system of education” or, as it was named after its “inventors”, the “Bell-Lancaster Method”. By looking at the communication of educational ideas between England and the early British possessions in India, this paper first analyses the actors involved in this process, especially their agendas and means. Inspired by the widespread belief in the powers of education to improve both society as a whole and individuals, educational activists gathered in a number of committees and organisations - among whom the “British and Foreign School Society” proved most influential. Protestant missionary societies also became active in the field of popular education. The monitorial system of education attracted social reformers, British as well as Indian, and missionaries to whom it appeared to be a technology with civilising powers, a rational instrument to morally uplift and, at the same time, subject individuals “to their respective places” in society. Second, the paper looks at the processes of hybridisation and transformation of the pedagogical knowledge that was communicated between India and England: the origins of the monitorial system in an orphanage school at Madras, its export to London, where it was developed into a standardised model, and its subsequent “re-import” into India. Finally, reports about the implementation of the monitorial system in India again had an impact on English public discourses on education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that has been receiving increasing attention in India. However, prevention of thalassemia in India continues to be difficult despite efforts of public health professionals and the government. Using West Bengal as a case study, this paper attempts to unravel some of the barriers to the prevention campaign and the consequent under utilization of the program. Lack of access, low awareness, low-risk perception and poverty are all important proximate constraints; however, one of the greatest barriers to the program is rooted in cultural notions of blood, marriage, identity, personhood and kinship in Bengali society. Blood is so deeply valued in the Bengali kinship system that this genetic mutation is perceived to be corrupting the blood (rakter dosh). Being a thalassemia carrier (i.e., having thalassemia minor) renders an individual unfit as a suitable marriage partner because of beliefs related to purity of blood, its association with the continuity of the lineage, and subsequent transmission of desirable traits to future generations. The risk of non-marriage affects women disproportionately, and parents are not inclined to test their daughters because of the possibility of not being able to marry them off to eligible suitors. The stigma associated with having thalassemia minor (TMI) is a deterrent to the disclosure of thalassemia status as well as to testing. Using anthropological theories and ethnographic methods, this paper focuses on the gendered process by which the diagnosis of a thalassemia carrier ‘spoils’ identities, thereby creating a disjuncture between the goals of the prevention program and people''s need for social conformity, and ultimately between medical desirability and social desirability. The paper also suggests policies for enhancing the utilization of the program. Finally the conclusions from this study have potential applications for public health prevention programs that confront problems of stigma in program acceptability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, we analyse the impact of tenancy reform in the Indian state of West Bengal on consumption expenditure of tenants. We use a difference-in-difference methodology with data from a household survey (the National Sample Survey) to compare the growth of consumption expenditure of tenants with that of non-tenants. Contrary to the conclusions of other authors, we do not find indications of substantial improvements in the living standards of the reform's beneficiaries. Finally, we analyse possible reasons for the discrepancy between our results and the rest of the literature.Cet article analyse l'impact de la réforme des conditions de bail dans l'Etat Indien du Bengale occidental sur la consommation des locataires. Nous employons une méthode des écarts dans les différences avec les données d'une enquête de ménage officielle - la «National Sample Survey» - afin de comparer l'augmentation des dépenses des locataires à celle des non-locataires. Contrairement aux conclusions d'autres chercheurs, nous ne trouvons aucune indication d'améliorations substantielles du niveau de vie des bénéficiaires de la réforme. Nous concluons par une discussion des raisons possibles expliquant cette divergence entre nos résultats et ceux du reste de la littérature.European Journal of Development Research (2009) 21, 231-249. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2008.18 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]