Reformist agency: young women, gender, and change in India

Abstract

This article uses long-term research in rural Uttarakhand, north India, to intervene in anthropological debates on agency. In the period between the early 2000s and late 2010s, many young women in the village of Bemni successfully sought opportunities to pursue their own goals. We highlight the manner in which young women's agency is ‘reformist’. This term is useful, in part, because it directs attention to the subtle and persistent nature of young women's action. Reformist agency also spotlights how operating within a set of norms can, in the long term, change those norms. At a broader and more diffuse level, we find that the idea of reformist agency is helpful in simultaneously connoting conformism and a measure of creativity. We also advance existing studies by highlighting one quite novel way in which reformist agency can work, via young women moving iteratively between acquiescing to patriarchal norms and pushing the boundaries of acceptable practice.