Fields of Protest: Women's Movements in India by Raka Ray


Fields of Protest: Women's Movements in India
Title : Fields of Protest: Women's Movements in India
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0816631328
ISBN-10 : 9780816631322
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 234
Publication : First published January 1, 1999

The women's movement in India has a long and rich history in which millions of ordinary women live, work, and struggle to survive in order to remake their family, home, and social lives. Whether fighting for safe contraception, literacy, water, and electricity or resisting sexual harassment, a vibrant and active women's movement is thriving in many parts of India today.

Fields of Protest explores the political and cultural circumstances under which groups of women organize. Starting with Bombay and Calcutta, Raka Ray discusses the creation of "political fields" -- structured, unequal, and socially constructed political environments within which organizations exist, flourish, or fail. In other words, women's organizations are not autonomous or free agents; rather, they inherit a "field" and its accompanying social relations, and when they act, they act in response to it and within it. Drawing on the literature of both social movements and feminism, Ray analyzes the striking differences between the movements in these two cities.

Using an innovative and comparative perspective, Ray offers a unique look at Indian activist women and adds a new dimension to the study of women's movements on a global level.


Fields of Protest: Women's Movements in India Reviews


  • Katie

    Ray offers a view of a few different communities in India and presents what the women are interested in, organizing for, and up against.

  • Sue

    This was assigned for a class (and everyone else seemed to like it much more than I did). Ray compares women's activism (through the 1970s I believe) in Calcutta and Bombay.