Symbolic Violence and Misrecognition: Scripting Gender among Middle-class Women, India

Abstract

Postcolonial India is a complex and paradoxical mix of sociocultural practices and modernity. This tension is especially apparent and holds particular significance, with respect to women’s changing roles. Driving this research is a concern to probe the position of women, pursuing higher education, as daughters/daughter(s)-in-law and wife within the family. The article focuses on the specific case of Assam, located in the northeastern region of India and, within it, a sub-population of young, middle-class Assamese women. The research considers the notions of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘misrecognition’ as well as feminist literature to examine how unequal gender relations in Assamese society are reproduced and sustained. It draws upon in-depth interviews conducted with a sample of students pursuing higher education in five different educational institutions of Assam. The narrative analysis reveals the conflicting but often-contradictory process of women’s changing roles, particularly of those women who are married and play simultaneously the roles of daughter(s)-in-law and wives. The findings demonstrate that the subtle process of socialisation (and cultural values) that stem from patriarchal power relations are so deeply entrenched within the Assamese society that these highly educated middle-class women continue to be subjected to symbolic power maintained by misrecognition.