Home>News
and Events
Title:
Waiting: Male Youth and the Politics of an Indian Middle
Class
Where
& When: April 14, 2009
341 Eggers Hall
12.00 pm
Type
of Activity: Speaker
Speaking: Craig
Jeffery, Associate Professor, Geography, University of
Washington.
Summary: Global
social and economic changes have pitched increasing numbers
of people into situations of chronic "waiting". People feel
invested in certain hopes for the future but lack the means
to realize their dreams. This talk examines the politics of
waiting with reference to unemployed young men in India. I
point to the emergence of a distinctive youth masculinity
built around the idea of "timepass" and focused on the
streetcorner as a site of male display. I also show how
waiting precipitates collective youth political action and
also narrower forms of politicking that reflect the
prerogatives of a youth middle class among the unemployed.
Waiting emerges not as a passive activity but as an active
process of engaging in the world replete with possibilities
for cultural practice and political mobilization.
Sponsorship:
The South Asia Center;
