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April 4 (Wednesday), 4:30pm, Thomas 224
Leela Fernandes
Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies
Rutgers University

“Gender and the Politics of Globalization: Reflections on India’s New
Middle Class”

Abstract: Interdisciplinary feminist scholarship has produced critical insights on the gendered politics of globalization. However, such scholarship often operates on the basis of naturalized frames of analysis
associated with transnationalism. Drawing on an in-depth study of the rise of India’s new middle class, I argue for a move away from two framing devices that shape the study of gender and globalization. The first is a
simplified opposition between global elites and subaltern groups. The second, is the methodological tendency to begin the study of globalization with visibility and movement. I use my research in India to develop a
conceptual framework that can (1) address the historical continuities and durability that shape the reproduction of intersecting inequalities despite the rhetoric of newness associated with globalization and transnationalism and (2) locates an understanding of visible phenomena
such as changing middle class consumption practices,  outsourcing and the rise of call centers within the context of national  economic and political
processes. The talk is based on field research conducted during the period 1996-2003.

April 12 (Thursday), 4:30pm, Thomas 224
Isabella Bakker, Political Science, York University, Toronto
“The Paradox of ‘Sound’ Macroeconomics and Gender Inequality”

April 26 (Thursday), 4:30pm, Dalton 300
Mary Osirim, Sociology, Bryn Mawr College
“Enterprising Women: Coping With Economic Crisis and Globalization in
Urban Zimbabwe”