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“She will control my son”: Navigating womanhood, English and social mobility in India
Author(s) -
Highet Katy
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/josl.12567
Subject(s) - caste , disadvantaged , modernity , gender studies , sociology , empowerment , indian english , colonialism , bengal , social mobility , social space , class (philosophy) , space (punctuation) , ethnography , political science , social science , history , anthropology , law , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , archaeology , bay
Through its colonial, class‐ and caste‐based history, English in India has come to be seen as a powerful resource that opens doors for those who ‘have’ it and holds back those who do not. For women, English ostensibly offers various promises in addition to employment: progressiveness and ‘empowerment’; and the potential for upward mobility through marriage. Yet, the conversion of English capital for English‐speaking Indian women proves to be intensely complex in practice, as many find themselves forced to navigate between shifting moral regimes attached to ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in an NGO in Delhi that offers free English training to ‘disadvantaged youth’, this paper explores how English capital is managed by young women striving to attain middle classness through English, and how their class, caste and gender positionings are negotiated across particular time‐space configurations as they seek to become English speakers.