Anamika Ajay

Centre for Development Studies

This article explores a largely understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration: how localised frameworks of feminine ideals and subjectivities interact with women’s migration. It is based on a mixed-methods field research conducted in 2016 in a village in Central Kerala with a long history of women’s labour migration. Analyses reveal...

Studies on microfinance programmes have shown how women’s social capital, accumulated through their everyday practices of sociality, is mobilized as a necessary resource to ensure group cohesiveness and loan repayments. While these studies have pointed out the importance of social capital inthe post-liberalisation development and welfare processes,...

Literature on Indian politics has largely under-examined the role of the family in shaping party politics with the exception of the studies on dynasticism. There is a paucity of research that looks at the complex ways in which intimate lives and party politics are intertwined. This article contributes to the existing feminist analyses of Indian par...

This article explores an understudied aspect of women’s transnational labour migration, namely how left-behind men negotiate the changes in their status in the domestic and public spheres when their daughters or wives migrate for work and become primary earners in the family. A case study of Syrian Christians in a village in Central Kerala with a l...

The third in the series resulting from the small research projects supported by the Research Unit on Local Self-Government at the Centre for Development Studies on Kerala’s emergent ecological challenges and the preparedness of our local democracy to take them on, this work on Puthenvelikara demonstrates the significance of the “local” in understan...

Community action and voluntary initiatives have always played an important role in responding to disasters. However, the sheer scale and pace at which affected communities are now able to mobilize resources and social support reveal the role of communication technology in crisis management. Using the case study of the great deluge in Kerala, this a...

With increasing urbanization in India, citizens’ expectations and demands regarding the quality of democratic institutions are likely to increase. Consequently, democratic institutions are under pressure to evaluate and improve the quality of services. One of the key institutions that determine the future of urban India is the electoral system and...