Learning to Love by Raksha Pande

Learning to Love by Raksha Pande

Learning to Love moves beyond the media and policy stereotypes that conflate arranged marriages with forced marriages. Using in-depth interviews and participant observations, this book assembles a rich and diverse array of everyday marriage narratives and trajectories and highlights how considerations of romantic love are woven into traditional arranged marriage practices. It shows that far from being a homogeneous tradition, arranged marriages involve a variety of different matchmaking practices where each family tailors its own cut-and-paste version of British-Indian arranged marriages to suit modern identities and ambitions. Pande argues that instead of being wedded to traditions, people in the British-Indian diaspora have skillfully adapted and negotiated arranged marriage cultural norms to carve out an identity narrative that portrays them as "modern and progressive migrants"–ones who are changing with the times and cultivating transnational forms of belonging.

"Marriage never went out of fashion, certainly among South Asians, though its forms, culture, and politics were never staticLearning to Love gives us a fine grained narration of fluid, changing practices and negotiations shaping ‘arranged marriage’ and intimacy through the voices of two generations of British Indians. Raksha Pande uncovers their making of culture, tradition, choice, modernity, and claims to citizenship contesting the stereotypes that prevail in the ‘west’." -- Rajni Palriwala * co-editor of Marrying in South Asia: Shifting Concepts, Changing Practices in a Globalising World *
"Amidst rising anti-immigrant sentiment, Learning to Love is a welcome intervention into entrenched, nationalist discourses of ‘arranged marriage’ that present it as anachronistic and utterly different from love marriage. Pande highlights the hopes and strategies of British-Indians, young and old, who talk of ‘rishta,’ matchmaking, intergenerational negotiation, modernity, and falling in love with the right person. A breath of fresh air!" -- Meena Khandelwal * author of Women in Ochre Robes *
"Theoretically robust, lucid in style, and presented in an accessible manner. It is a welcome addition to the literature on marriage and spousal selection in general and diasporic marriages in particular. It will be of interest to scholars in the domain of geography, social anthropology, sociology, and gender studies working on questions of diaspora, marriage migration, and (informal) citizenship and anyone interested in the theme of marriage and transnational lives." * Gender, Place & Culture *

RAKSHA PANDE is a lecturer in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University in the UK.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780813599632
ISBN 10	0813599636
Title	Learning to Love
Author	Raksha Pande
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Rutgers University Press
Year published	2021-03-19
Number of pages	154
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.