Young Muslim Women in India: Bollywood, Identity and Changing Youth Culture

Description

This book, based on extensive, original research, details the changing lives of youth living in slum communities (bustees) in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Using young people's own photos, art and narratives, the book explores how Muslim girls and young women are contributing to, and impacted by, changing youth culture in India. We are invited into the risky world of mixed-sex dance taking place in clandestine spaces in the slums. We join young people on their journeys to find premarital romance and witness their strategic and savvy risk taking when participating in transgressive aspects of consumer culture. The book reveals how social changes in India, including greater education and employment opportunities, as well as powerful middle class Muslim reform discourses, are impacting youth the very local level. More than just fantasy we see that Bollywood is an important role model which young people consult. By carefully negotiating risks and performing multiple identities inspired by modernity, globalization and, most of all, Bollywood culture, young people actively participate in a changing India and disrupt dominant discourses about slum youth as poor victims who are excluded from social change. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures Acknowledgement 1. Introduction Introduction Urban slums/bustees Television in the Bustees A changing India Viewing Bollywood/Bollywood viewers Working with young women Chapter overview Notes 2. The good Muslim girl Introduction Honour, seclusion and protection Children and youth/girls and young women 'The good Muslim girl’ Bollywood and identity in the bustees Notes 3. Bollywood dancing in the bustees Introduction Discos and class Bollywood participation and local Islam Supporting a Bollywood show A Western show Geographies of performance Dance supporters, private Dance supporters, public Dance and risk Navigating through risks The public performance Beyond Nach Baliye Conclusion Notes 4. Love, desire and disappointment Introduction A suitable match: arranged marriages in the bustees Religious identity and dowry expectations Education and marriage The good girl and love/romance Playing games Changing expectations? Role models Geographies of relationships The dating process Developing a relationship Love, sex and intimacy Bollywood and informal sex education Geographies of sexual encounters Sexual negotiations Disenchantment and disappointment Breaking up, stalking and violence Conclusion Notes 5. Changing youth culture, changing consumption culture Introduction Money, work and purdah Public face and izzat Public employment – fantasies and realities Relationships and gift giving Role models Im/modest clothing Modest clothing and Bollywood 'Smart and modern’: Western clothes Clothing and Nach Baliye Clothing and local Islam Food and independence Changing foodscapes Food and the party Food around the city Conclusion Notes Conclusion Bollywood and a modern India Risk, individualisation and youth Glossary Bibliography Index