SAC presents: Jocelyn Killmer

Jocelyn Killmer, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University

Reluctant Villagers: Young Women Doctors in Rural Rajasthan, India

Few Indian doctors celebrate the difficulties of practicing medicine in small rural clinics, far away from the technological marvels of tertiary hospitals and the steady electricity and water supply of the city. This presentation highlights the challenges faced by young women doctors beyond the obvious lack of urban amenities. Young women are attuned to the gendered dangers of living far from their protective social networks amongst what they see as a “backwards” – and therefore threatening – rural population. Killmer will explore the discourse of safety and danger young women doctors employ, as well as the tactics they use to work around potential problems, in order to understand how the gendered anxieties of Rajasthan’s urban- educated medical elites map onto the rural landscape.

Open to the public

Sponsored by South Asia Center at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs