Abstract
This chapter highlights the emergence of the discourse on ‘new girlhood’ among Muslim families from lower, middle, and upper classes in Assam’s Nagaon district. I focus on change and continuity of ideals around normative femininity in the girls’ and parents’ narratives around aspirations. Muslim parents in my study enact as a merger of economic and cultural ideologies by fusing together career and marital aspirations into a single concept of ‘appropriate aspirations’. Muslim girls on the other hand exhibit a range of attitudes in negotiating appropriate aspirations, often narrating their experiences using a storyline of the ‘aspirational victimhood’ that voices their agency and their victimhood at the same time. I argue such reflexive capacities of the Muslim girls enable them to assume ‘new girlhood’ in Assam.
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Notes
- 1.
Fadir-ul-Madarass examination is a qualifying examination held by the State’s Madrassa Education Board, at the end of 10 years of Madrassa education.
- 2.
The term ‘doctor-engineer’ is used colloquially in Assam to convey the idea of someone, in what are seen as stable professions.
- 3.
Indian Police Service.
- 4.
Union Public Service Examination.
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Hussain, S.M. (2018). Merging Career and Marital Aspirations: Emerging Discourse of ‘New Girlhood’ Among Muslims in Assam. In: Hussein, N. (eds) Rethinking New Womanhood. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67900-6_7
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