All rooms are equipped with an overhead projector
Rooms C, D, E, F, G and H (H only on Saturday): slide projector (framed slides, carrousel. There are extra carrousels available to set up your presentation in advance)
Rooms C, D, M, N, O, U and Committee Room 2: beamer to connect your laptop. You have to bring you own laptop. (If you want to use your Apple notebook, please contact us, as it may be incompatible.)
Rooms C, T and U: VCR
Programme
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“‘Modernization’, Globalization and Change: Marriage, Gender Relations and Traditions
| This paper will analyze early 20th century historical discourses about family systems among Muslims in South India. It will then focus on recent changes in cultural practices concerning gender relations and labor migration. Modernization and globalization are central to the analysis, as is the tension between religious and secular forces, and that brought about by Westernization.
The empirical material draws upon a case study in Kerala, a state known for its high social indicators, level of development, and radical trade unions. Kerala has a population that is approximately 56% Hindu, 19% Christian, and 25% Muslim. Each religious community is ruled by different civil regulations, family systems, and customary laws.
The Mappilas, a Muslim community in the Malabar district of northern Kerala, is of particular interest because of its matrilineal family traditions. Since about 1970, large numbers of Mappilas in search of work have migrated from South India to countries in the Arabian Gulf, most returning to India only occasionally. In the wake of this exodus, a process of cultural change has taken place in community left behind in Kerala, most conspicuously the wearing of the burqa—something unheard of there twenty years ago. However, with regard to marriage payments, the customs of the Mappilas have gone in the other direction, shifting from the traditional Islamic mahr (the mandatory gift from a Muslim bridegroom to his bride) to the Hindu and Christian practice of dowry, in spite of the fact that Muslim religious doctrine strongly condemns dowry.
The pressing question is what social and cultural forces have prompted the Mappilas to diverge from Islamic teachings, secular law, and moral discourse? How has exposure to global society affected Mappila identity and the structure of their community? The focus of this paper is not on the migrants, but the women left at home, and how they have been affected by the social change Gulf migration has wrought. It takes a broader historical view than earlier studies by including cultural traditions from the past. At the same time it is narrower than anthropological and economic analyses on migration because it confines itself to Muslims.
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