Flying High or Lying Low? The Moral Economy of Young Women in Higher Education in Punjab, India

Main author: Purewal, Navtej
Other authors: Gill, Manpreet Kaur
Format: Book Chapters           
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id eprints-25118
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description This chapter explores young women’s participation in higher education as a reflection of changes and challenges to the moral economy currently taking place in the Indian state of Punjab. With its renowned capitalist agricultural development as well as skewed sex ratios against females, we highlight how the metaphorical liking of girls and young women as ‘paraya dhan’ (others’ property) outward bound from the natal ‘nest’ highlights the deepening and extending role of gendered patriarchal norms making women’s education a potential risk to the moral economy of society. Thus, the moral panic surrounding the sex ratio and ‘scarce women’ in Punjab exists within a paradoxically broader moral economy in which potentially threatening impacts of women’s higher education participation to the patriarchal social order are measured up against a deeply patriarchal social and economic base of Punjabi society.
author_additional Sachdeva, Vivek
author_additionalStr Sachdeva, Vivek
format Book Chapters
author Purewal, Navtej
author_facet Purewal, Navtej
Gill, Manpreet Kaur
authorStr Purewal, Navtej
author_letter Purewal, Navtej
author2 Gill, Manpreet Kaur
author2Str Gill, Manpreet Kaur
title Flying High or Lying Low? The Moral Economy of Young Women in Higher Education in Punjab, India
publisher Routledge
publishDate 2019
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/25118/