This article examines intersections between sexuality, migration, and citizenship in the context of cross-border and cross-region marriage migration in Kutch, Gujarat, to underscore that women's mobility across borders is one site on which national cultural and political anxieties unfold. It argues that contemporary crossregion marriage migration must be located within the larger political economy of such marriages, and should take into account the historical trajectories of marriage migration in particular regions. To this end, it examines three instances of marriage migration in Kutch: the princely state's marriages with Sindh, nineteenth-century marriages between merchants from Kutch and women from Africa, and contemporary marriage migration into Kutch from Bengal. The article asks whether the relative evaluation of these marriages by the state can be viewed in relation to the settlement policies undertaken after partition, where borderlands were to be settled with those who were deemed loyal citizens. Finally, by historicizing marriage-as structure, but also aspirational categoryit seeks to move away from the singularity of marriage as framed in the dominant sociological discourse on marriage in South Asia.
IntroductionThis qualitative study evaluates a nutrition and hygiene education program led by trained community nutrition scholars for 5,000 mothers of small children in the Khulna and Satkhira districts in southern Bangladesh. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) understanding the processes and reasonings behind mothers' improvement in child feeding, food preparation, hygiene, and homestead garden production, (2) understanding men's roles in facilitating women's behavioral changes, and (3) assessing the degree of changes in subjective notions of self-confidence, decision-making, and recognition among mothers and nutrition scholars.MethodsData were collected through 14 focus group discussions with 80 participants and in-depth interviews with 6 women community nutrition scholars. Data was then analysed qualitatively by drawing on direct quotes from focus group discussions and interviews with detailed interpretation and account for respondents' behaviors and perceptions.ResultsOverall findings confirm behavior changes by women, their spouses, and other family members. Many women were able to independently decide to change food allocation and child feeding practices after gaining self-confidence through the training. Men performed vital roles, such as purchasing nutritious food in local markets, providing labor for land preparation of homestead gardens, and defending the women from the resistance to change by their mothers-in-law.DiscussionWhile the study supports the literature that women's bargaining power in food/resource allocation is critical in child health and nutrition, the evaluation found that this process involves negotiations among family members. Engaging men and mothers-in-law in nutrition interventions have great potential to make nutrition interventions more effective.
This article asks, Why do these nomadic populations continue to adhere to a lifestyle that has clearly become economically and ecologically difficult to sustain? Why has their seasonal transformation from nomads into dairymen not led to the kind of permanent transformation described
by Salzman in his study based in south Gujarat? Other regional pastoral communities like the Rabaris continue to herd animals but often only as a supplement to other sources of income. Why do the Jatts of Banni continue to hold so tenaciously to the possibility of return to a land that is
barren and dry most of the year and flooded over on the rare occasions it rains? It will be argued that nomadic populations should be situated not merely in regard to the ecological constraints that dictate lifestyle choices, even though those constraints are real ones. Instead, I hope to
show that the continued back and forth movement of the Jatt pastoralists ought to be seen as an outcome of a network of choices that are political and ideological rather than purely ecological in nature.
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