The Civil Society Workshop will meet on Thursday, October 24 at 12:30 pm for a discussion with

Varnica Arora,

doctoral student in the Critical Social Personality Psychology, GC CUNY

“Intersectional explorations into the changing nature of womens civic engagement in rural India”

This talk explores the impacts and questions raised by the insidious movements of government promoted civil society organizations (GO’s) to push out civil society actors from grassroots mobilization in rural India. As of May 2019, Sixty million rural women across the country have been organized into Self Help groups. The extent to which they contribute to issues of gender justice remains contentious. Using an intersectional framework, implications of these changes are discussed drawing on data collected from Self Help Groups either formed by a NGO or GOs in India . The data suggests that there are important differences in the definition and enactment of processes of collective action and political participation within the context of GOs and NGOs. Further, theorizing civic engagement at the intersection of women’s multiple positionalities within the shaskiya (governmental), samajik (social/religious) and saravjanik (communitarian) realms offers a bottom up framework to understand the complexities of the changing relationship between women, civil society, and the State.

Room: Political Science Thesis Room, room 5200.07

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