This study incorporated a community based assessment with a focus on community based tourism in Kalache and Hulgol, India. Kalache and Hulgol are two agrarian based communities located in the environmentally significant region of the Western Ghats. Each of these communities has considered community based tourism as a means to reduce urban youth outmigration, to diversify economic resources, and to encourage the empowerment of women. The primary goals of this study were to understand the community issues and objectives, to determine the level of support for tourism development, to determine participant attitudes toward tourism, and to determine the obstacles to tourism development. The findings of this project address the complexity of operating in the tourism industry, the impacts of tourism, and the use of community based tourism models in support of sustainable tourism.
The purpose of this study was to better understand student learning in asynchronous computer-conference discourse (ASD) for non-native speakers of English in India through the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework. The study looked at ASD from an online course taught in the fall of 2015 to 25 students in a seminary in South India. All but one of the students were non-native speakers of English. The class consisted of 22 men and 3 women. Eight students spoke languages from the Dravidian family of languages (Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu and Kannada). Eight students were from the Northeastern states of Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, where most languages are from the Sino-Tibetan family. Three students were native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages (Odiya and Assamese). Five students were from Myanmar representing several Sino-Tibetan languages. The COI is a framework used to understand learning in ASD, often used in online learning. To study the ASD of this group, critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used with the COI to capture the unique socio-cultural and linguistic conditions of this group. The study revealed that non-native speakers of English often reach the Exploration phase of learning but rarely show evidence of reaching the Resolution phase. This phenomenon was also observed in native English speakers as reported in the literature. Also, the structure of ASD showed that students took an examination approach to discussion shaped in part by their epistemology. This examination approach shaped how knowledge was constructed. CDA also showed that the discourse acquired an instructor-centered structure in which Resolution and Repair were initiated and finalized by the instructor. The study advances the COI framework by undergirding it with a theory of asynchronous discourse using critical discourse analysis and capturing cognitive, social and teaching presence phenomena for non-native speakers that were not observed through the traditional COI framework. These …
The influence of Mohandas K. Gandhi on social and environmental movements in post-colonial India has been widely acknowledged. Yet, the contributions of two European associates of Gandhi, Madeleine Slade and Catherine Mary Heilemann, better known in India as Mira Behn and Sarala Behn, have not received the due attention of the academic community. This dissertation is an examination of the philosophy and social activism of Mira Behn and Sarala Behn and their roles in the evolution of Gandhian philosophy of socioeconomic reconstruction and environmental conservation in the present Indian state of Uttarakhand. Instead of just being acolytes of Gandhi, I argue that these women developed ideas and practices that drew upon from an extensive intellectual terrain that cannot be limited to Gandhi’s work. I delineate the directions in which Gandhian thought and experiments in rural development work evolved through the lives, activism, and written contributions of these two women. Particularly, I examine their influence on social and environmental movements, such as the Chipko and the Anti-Tehri Dam movements, and their roles in promoting grassroots social development and environmental sustainability in the mountain communities of Uttarakhand. Mira Behn and Sarala Behn’s integrative philosophical worldviews present epistemological, sociopolitical, ethical, and metaphysical principles and practices that have local and global significance for understanding interfaith dialog, social justice, and environmental sustainability and thus constitute a useful contribution to the theory and practice of human emancipation in our times.
In India, issues of gender discrimination and female empowerment have become more prominent in the last several years. Elderly women, specifically widows, are often abandoned or not well cared for by family members and are typically marginalized within Indian society, vulnerable, and susceptible to poverty. This is an exploratory analysis with a research hypothesis asking, who are the caregivers of elderly widows? Statistics indicate that women may be taking on more of a care giving role with elderly widows which in turn may exacerbate the already existing issues of poverty and neglect for this population. The purpose of this study was to examine in more depth the factors related to living arrangements of elderly Indian widows using the NFHS-3 (2005-2006) data set. Quantitative methods of secondary data analysis and systematic literature review are employed in this research. sociological factors related to family self-reported living arrangement, age of widow, education, caste, socioeconomic level, religion, and geographic region were analyzed using data from the respondents identified as older widows (N=2,176). Findings indicate 78% report living alone or in non-familial households while 22% reported living in various familial constellations. The odds of living with a relative versus not living with a relative were found to be significant for three variables: age, religion Muslim, and region Northern. Living arrangements for elderly widows in Indian society are determined based on a complex system of logic embedded in a patrilineal descent, family convention, religion, and regional cultural practices. Understanding these complex factors is important in predicting the needs and available services for this population of vulnerable elderly women.
Microfinance programs, by providing financial services to economically disadvantaged individuals, generally women, are intended to help poor self-employ and become financially independent. Earlier research in India has documented both positive and negative consequences of microfinance programs on women, from financial independence to domestic abuse. However, most of the research has been geographically limited to the southern states of the country, with a matured microfinance industry, and has given little attention to how variations in cultural practices across different regions of the country may influence the impact of microfinance programs on its members. To fill the gap in the existing literature, three related studies of Indian women were conducted. The first study was a qualitative study of 35 women engaged in microfinance programs in the northern region of India. The study found that women engaged in microfinance programs reported having increased social networks, higher confidence and increased social awareness. The second and third studies used nationally representative data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) 2005-2006. Controlling for a variety of other individual-level and community-level characteristics, the second study examined if getting a microloan affected women’s access to public spaces, and the third examined if getting such a loan influenced married women’s participation in household decision-making. Both studies further investigated if the microloan effect on these dimensions of women’s empowerment varied by the normative context of woman’s respective communities. The results indicated that, all else equal, women who had ever taken a microloan were more likely to go alone to places outside their home such as market, health clinics and places outside the community compared to women who had never taken such a loan. Getting a microloan also had a positive effect on women’s participation in decisions about large household purchases and husband’s earnings. The hypothesized moderating effect of the normative …
In 1991, India adopted neoliberalism, a system of political economic practices that promotes private property and free trade, as its political and economic system to promote development in their country. India's neoliberal reform has created issues surrounding human development, resource accumulation, and power struggles. Eleven years later, in 2002, Bt cotton was introduced to the Indian agricultural sector. This research examines how the genetically modified organism Bt cotton is being used to commodify nature in the context of agriculture under neoliberalism. The research focuses on the dispossession of the rural farmers through the commodification of agriculture using Bt cotton. Dispossession of the rural farmers happen through the implications that arise from the commodification of nature. Through Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, this research analyzes accumulation by dispossession and how it neglects the working class and its struggle in rural India. Through this examination, the research will argue alternatives to the dispossession of the working class and the commodification of nature through Bt cotton. Dispossession, in this research, is examined both through working class, but also through the dispossession of biodiversity. Through the loss of biodiversity, the rural farmers are becoming dispossessed from a more sustainable environment. Along with these goals, the research will also incorporate themes of food security through changing landscape of agriculture due to the incorporation of Bt cotton. This research argues the contradictions that are presented through the commodification of agriculture under neoliberalism and provide a contribution to social justice literature, and our understanding of the relationship between technology and the commodification of nature.
The rasa theory of Indian aesthetics is concerned with the nature of the genesis of emotions and their corresponding experiences, as well as the condition of being in and experiencing the aesthetic world. According to the Indian aesthetic theory, rasa ("juice" or "essence," something that is savored, that is tasted) is an embodied aesthetic experienced through an artistic performance. In this thesis, I have investigated how the aesthetics of rasa philosophy account for creative presence and its experiences in Karnatik vocal performances. Beyond the facets of grammar, Karnatik rāga performance signifies a deeper ontological meaning as a way to experience rasa, idiomatically termed as rāga-rasa by South Indian rāga practitioners. A vocal performance of a rāga ideally depends on a singer's embodied experience of rāga and rāga-bhāva (emotive expression of rāga), as much as it does on his/her theoretical knowledge and skillset of a rāga's svaras (scale degrees), gamakas (ornamentation), lakṣhaṇās (emblematic phrases), and so on. Reflecting on my own experience of being a Karnatik student and performer for the last two decades, participant observation, interviews, and analysis of Indian aesthetic theory of rasa, I propose a way of understanding that to sing rāga is to embody bhāva opening the space that brings rasa into being. Reflecting on the epistemology of rāga theory, particularly its smaller entities of svaras and gamakas, and through a phenomenological description of the process through which a vocalist embodies rāga (including how a guru transmits this musical embodiment to his shishya [disciple]), I argue that the notion of rāga-rasa itself has agency in determining the nature of svaras and its gamakas in a rāga performance. Additionally, focusing on the relationship between performers and rasikas (drinkers of the juice), this thesis examines how the embodiment of rāga-bhāva and the experience of rasa open the possibility for …
Tales of My Cities is a poetic observation of life in the cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, India. The documentary is an intimate first-person exploration of the culture in these cities. The viewer should find a surreal peace in the life and atmosphere of the cities where life extends from centuries old traditions to the current hi-tech pace of life.
Born in 1927 in Bombay, Vanraj Bhatia is an Indian composer of music for concerts, film, television, opera, meditation, and commercial jingles. His musical style is unique, stemming from his training in both Western and North Indian classical, or Hindustani, music. Little is known about Vanraj Bhatia in the Western classical world, and in India he is recognized primarily as a composer of film music. This dissertation aims to bring awareness of Vanraj Bhatia's significance as a Western classical composer, focusing on uncovering the cross-cultural influences of his only solo flute piece, Night Music, composed in 1964. This research offers Western flutists a better understanding of Indian music, specifically Hindustani and Indian folk music traditions, often not fully understood since Indian music is an aural tradition, rarely transcribed and notated, and relies on a guru/shishya (teacher/student) relationship. Such an understanding will elucidate the compositional choices made in Night Music, allowing flutists to be more informed in their performance of it. Although the focus of this study is on Night Music, other repertoire from Bhatia's concert music and film music will also be examined to illuminate Bhatia's compositional style, which includes elements of Hindustani music, Indian folk music, and Western musical traditions. An exploration of some of Bhatia's other compositions written for Western musicians will give readers beyond the realm of flutists a better understanding of his distinctive, cross-cultural style and influences, and will introduce larger audiences to this exceptional and little-known composer.
This dialog allows you to filter your current search.
Each of the Years listed note their name and the number of records that will be limited down to if you choose that option.
This dialog allows you to filter your current search.
Each of the Months listed note their name and the number of records that will be limited down to if you choose that option.
This dialog allows you to filter your current search.
Each of the Department listed note their name and the number of records that will be limited down to if you choose that option.
The list can be sorted by name or the count.
This dialog allows you to filter your current search.
Each of the Discipline listed note their name and the number of records that will be limited down to if you choose that option.
The list can be sorted by name or the count.
This dialog allows you to filter your current search.
Each of the Degree Level listed note their name and the number of records that will be limited down to if you choose that option.