WHEN: Friday, 6 September 2024, 3.30 - 4.30 pm (BST), 8 - 9 pm (IST)

WHERE: Online (MS Teams)

Seminar speaker:

Upasana Garnaik is a Doctoral Candidate in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. She obtained a Master of Laws from Duke Law School in 2012 and subsequently has worked as a lawyer, researcher and academic in India. Her research and teaching interests include gender, family, economic sociology and the law.

Upasana's dissertation focuses on middle class women's experiences in family disputes in India when they make economic claims against their family. Using qualitative methods such as observations in courtrooms and mediation centers, in-depth interviews and archival research, Upasana uncovers familial and legal mechanisms which make it extremely difficult for women to access family wealth. Upasana's research has been supported by the American Sociological Association through a National Science Foundation grant, American Association for University Women, the P.E.O Foundation and the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice.

Abstract:

What is the role and meaning of women’s money in matrimonial disputes? Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I highlight the legal and familial mechanisms through which money becomes gendered. By integrating concepts from economic sociology on relational work and Daniel’s (1984) concept of invisible labor, I conceptualize “invisible money”. I use the frame of “invisible money” to show how women’s tangible economic contributions in the household are rendered invisible in addition to the “invisible labor” they perform in the household. Further, I problematize economic self-sufficiency as a means of economic empowerment and highlight how women’s access to paid labor and assets have to be evaluated in a socio-legal landscape.

The Laws of Social Reproduction project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (under grant agreement No. 772946).

For more information about the project, please email Prabha.kotiswaran@kcl.ac.uk.