Even though Kerala has made significant progress on the health front, the nutritional status of adolescent girls remains poor. It is reported that 49 per cent of the girls of 15 years of age are under-height and 67 per cent under-weight. It is in an effort to understand the extent of and socio-economic basis for malnutrition among adolescent girls in rural Kerala, that Raheena Begum took up a project on Prevalence of malnutrition among adolescent girls in a rural area. The study was conducted among 205 adolescent girls, of 14 and 15 years of age, of 949 households in Kalliyoor panchayat of Thiruvananthapuram district, selected using the multistage sampling procedure. Most of the sample households were poor and dependent on agriculture with income ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 per month.
She found indication of malnutrition in the height and weight status of the sample. The weight for height measure for the sample revealed that only about 49 per cent was with 90 per cent and above of the required weight for height. About 43 per cent of the sample was below the required body mass index. The researcher found that the intake of nutrients, protein, vitamin, and iron of the sample was well below the required levels. She also noted that only 34 per cent of the sample was aware of the need for and the composition of, balanced diet.
Mary Ukkuru sought to study the Impact of the dual role played by working women on their health and nutritional profile. One of the fallouts of an approach to women's empowerment which maintains that participation in outside work by women can remedy the assymetric power relations based on gender is that women going out to work have increasingly to cope with the double burden of work. The study draws on this context to examine the implications of outside work, in addition to their domestic burden, on working women's health and nutritional profile. She chose to look at working women between 30 and 40 years of age in the middle-income class in Venganoor panchayat of Thiruvananthapuram district and selected at random, but covering all 12 wards of the panchayat, 100 working women. A controlled group of 20 women who were not working outside the home were selected for comparison with the study group.
Women in the experimental group reported a sense of economic independence emerging from employment and reported using their economic resources to meet household expenses. They prioritised their constraints as emerging from poor transport facilities, low wages, and strenuous work conditions. Employed women were spending less time on 'personal care' than full-time housewives, who reported greater time spent on entertainment and relaxation. Average food consumption data indicated that cereals and pulses consumption was above the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) among the respondents in the sample and below RDA in the control group. The majority of the employed women came in the medium-to-high energy expenditure group, whereas few women in the control group were found in that group.
Employed women, despite their dual burden of work, were found to enjoy better health status than their unemployed counterparts. They were also stated to be more health conscious. Two sets of indices were developed and used in order to assess health status: 'living condition index' (LSI) and 'nutritional status index' (NSI). The former indicated that families of both the groups were similarly placed with half the respondents in both the groups falling in the category of medium-to-high living conditions. The nutritional status index revealed that half t he respondents in both the groups fell in the category of medium-to-high NSI group. However, significant variation was noted between the two groups and employed women were found to fare better than housewives on NSI.
Yet, there were costs in terms of strain; more than half the employed women were found to suffer from employment-related strain at medium-to-high levels. Further, they noted several difficulties emerging from their situation: inability to find time for child care and to cope with household and job responsibilities, lack of leisure time, and inadequate rest.
U. T. Damayanthi sought to study the performance of DWCRA in terms of their impact on the development of women in the rural areas in Thrissur district. The researcher sought to assess the scheme in terms of its own objectives and to identify the problems and constraints experienced in its functioning. The primary data for the study was collected at the level of the block panchayats. On the basis of information gleaned from Block Development Offices (BDOs) /Mukhya Sevikas, the overall performance of each block panchayat was categorised into 'good', 'moderate', and 'poor'. As a sample for in-depth analysis, 10 blocks were selected, keeping in mind the need for representation of the different categories identified. Information regarding the functioning of the 119 DWCRA units in the 10 blocks was collected using a detailed interview schedule. The issues inquired into related to the organisation of the group, their assets and liabilities, mobilisation of finance, selection of income-generating activities, training, production, and marketing and loan repayment. It was found that members of the scheme were drawn from the poor segments of the rural population using the IRDP norm. The beneficiaries constituted a heterogeneous group - with differences along the lines of age, caste, educational qualification, marital status, etc., - a characteristic, which was one of the sources of tension in the functioning of the programme.
Performance was measured using a composite performance index constructed incorporating average monthly returns inclusive of wages, amount deposited with the bank, difference between assets and liabilities, and the percentage of active members. Employment satisfaction of members and regularity of repayment of loan were considered as dummy variables. The index was worked out only for 111 of the 119 units as eight units had become defunct. Two-thirds of the units were found to be functioning at below 50 per cent value of the index. About 55 per cent of the units was found viable with average or higher level of performance. It was the weaving, tailoring, and readymade garment units that revealed high levels of viability. This was followed by animal husbandry and food processing units in that order.
A socio-economic survey was conducted to assess the impact of the programme on the beneficiary households. For this purpose, households in which the member had been part of DWCRA for at least two years were selected. Four beneficiaries from each of the sample units were selected randomly for the survey. Two banks that had provided loans to the units were also selected at random from each sample block. The impact on beneficiary households was assessed with the help of a weighted index incorporating monthly income derived from the scheme, improvement in asset position, improvement in housing and living conditions and beneficiaries own rating of the extent of benefit derived from the scheme. The impact of the scheme was found to be high only in 26 per cent of the cases; in 57 per cent of the cases, it was poor and insignificant.
In his study of the Determinants and consequences of young women's employment in Kerala, Pradeep Kumar Panda explores the inter-linkages between marital status, economic conditions, and employment of women. The importance of the study is clear in the context of Kerala's very poor showing in terms of women's employment. Female work force participation rate actually declined from 16.61 per cent in 1981 to 15.85 per cent in 1991 as against a rise of more than 2 per cent in the rate of male labour force participation during the same period. Data for the study was drawn from a survey conducted in 1997 of a total of 500 households in Thiruvananthapuram district. In order to capture socio-economic diversity, three urban and three rural areas of the district were selected from which a total of 10 wards were taken for study. The households were selected by random sampling from the households in the selected areas which had women between 18 and 35 years of age who were no longer pursuing education or if they were employed also. This resulted in the selection of 630 women for detailed interview. To measure the class status of the household, detailed information on food and non-food expenditure of each household was collected.
The researcher looks for answers to the following questions. Which young women work for pay and why? To what extent is a woman's household economic status, especially poverty, an important determinant of employment? To what degree does this relationship differ for married and single women? It is interesting in the context of Kerala's very low rate of female labour force participation that the researcher finds evidence of a 'U' shaped relationship between household economic status (or class) and women's current employment status. This showed that there were more women in employment at the lower and higher economic groups, determined by using expenditure classes, while among the middle economic group a smaller proportion of women went out to work. While this was true for all women and for married women, for single women poverty increased the likelihood of paid employment without significant effect at the upper end of the spectrum. The interplay of economic and cultural factors is an important determinant of women's employment in the imperfect and almost saturated labour market in Kerala.
The process of economic reforms, which unfolded in the country in the 1990s, has been associated with a trend towards increased feminisation and casualisation of the labour force in the unorganised sector, where there already had been a significant presence of women. In this context, Sheela Varghese examined the case of the garment industry in Kerala in her project, Employment of women in the garment industry. Ernakulam district was selected for the study as it had the highest proportion of women industrial units (26.5 per cent) in the State, most of which started functioning after 1990. Further, a majority of women industrial units, defined as units run by women and where women constitute 80 per cent of the workers, are involved in the production of garments. Different types of units (i.e., units of the Cochin Export Processing Zone, independent assembly line units, and registered and unregistered units) were included in the study. Interviews were conducted with 250 workers and 36 manufacturers.
The researcher enquired into the working and living conditions as well as the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of workers using a gender perspective. Methods of recruitment, nature of labour contract, pattern of employment including occupational segregation, differential wage structure, mode of payment and mobility of labour was specifically looked into. Her findings bore out discriminatory practices based on gender. More than three-fourths of the workers was young and unmarried and the proportion of women was the highest among the export-oriented units. However, workers were not aware that they were producing for export. More than half the workers suffered from various health problems and the intensity of ailments was higher in the CEPZ. Twenty-eight per cent of worker households was female-headed. Though women workers were more educated than their male counterparts, they were unable to use this fact to their advantage. Wage disparities were evident between units and in the same units. More than one-fourth of women workers received less than Rs 600 a month while there were no male workers in this category. On the other hand, 20 per cent of the male workers received more than Rs 2000, and there were no women in this category. Further, while 65 per cent of the male workers received time wages with other non-wage benefits, the majority of women workers received time-cum-piece wages. Assembly line production was carried out in the export-oriented units in which men were employed in higher category jobs and women in lower category jobs.
Moreover, there was a tendency for producers to shift their units to the unorganised sector. Though workers of export-oriented assembly line units and registered units were considered to belong to the organised sector they had little job security. Women were also found to work up to 12 hours a day especially in the EPZ units. Norms regarding working conditions did not exist; even in cases in which they did, they were seldom observed.
The study by Lakshmi Devi on Education, employment, and job preference of women in Kerala: a micro-level case study of Thrissur district is an empirical investigation into the causes of low female labour force participation and high rate of female unemployment in the State. The researcher proposes to examine the interlinkages between education, job opportunities, and job preference on the basis of micro-level data in order to understand the phenomenon of low participation of female labour force. In order to do so, she takes into account the relationship between employment characteristics and other socio-economic variables such as parental background, educational characteristics, husband's socio-economic characteristics, and other aspects of the family situation. She proposes to bring out the differences emerging from rural and urban locations.
Five grama panchayats and one municipality in Thrissur were selected at random for the study. From these, one ward from each panchayat and two wards from the municipality were selected. She has surveyed 504 households (372 rural and 132 urban) and is in the process of analysing the data.
Mini Sukumar in her study, Analysis of income and expenditure pattern of working women in the context of the emerging consumer culture, seeks to estimate women's contribution to the family income; to assess the level of control of women in the utilisation of family income and study the expenditure pattern to get an idea of the choices being exercised by women as well as their priorities.
The researcher intends to use primary data collected from two panchayats in Kottayam district, Kumarakom and Aymanam based on a survey of selected households from all the wards of the panchayats. Households will be selected from all socio-economic groups with an emphasis on agricultural labour households. Special attention will be paid to the personal expenditure of women linked both to their capacity as earners and as potential consumers in a market economy. Diaries were distributed to women from 30 selected households to record daily expenditure for a month. The researcher has been gathering information about women's economic activities and expenditure patterns using other means as well such as formal and informal discussions at meetings of women.
Mariamma Kalathil in her study 'Withered Valli': Tribal development and the alienation, degradation, and enslavement of the tribesfolk especially of the tribal women in Attappadi, seeks to understand the multiple strands of exploitation that tribal women confront in Attappadi. The study also makes effort to look for responses of the tribal women to both government and international development programmes and to settler interventions that have led to alienate tribal people from land and other productive resources. Attappadi is a predominantly tribal area in Palakkad district, known for the degradation of its once rich forests. The researcher would focus on the three tribal groups in Attappady i.e., Irular, Muduga, and Kurumbar.
A complex of factors has forced tribal groups to leave their earlier settlements for less productive hilltops. Besides, for want of other productive resources, sections of tribal society are being forced to look for work on settler farms, providing the latter with a cheap source of labour. Tribal women of Attappady face very specific problems. They are forced to work 12 to 13 hours and paid as little as Rs 10 to 20 a day. For granting access to credit or other development assistance, sexual favours are sought by officials.
In this context, the researcher seeks to understand the multiple processes at work, which have served to disempower tribal people and especially tribal women, in the face, ironically, of huge development projects. This leads her to a documentation of the historical processes of intervention both by the state and by settlers from outside the area into the livelihood systems of the tribal inhabitants. The role of state policy in the creation of certain degenerative processes is also looked into. The researcher intends to document the processes of social and economic production and reproduction in tribal society with emphasis on the strains experienced on their earlier practices. The study raises several important questions including the role women play in tribal life. What did development intervention mean for them? What changes has 'development' brought? With what consequences?
The researcher sees this as a participatory social action research and has been collecting material with the help of 10 research assistants recruited from among the young tribesfolk (six women and four men). The method required intense interaction with the people through workshops, detailed interviews as well as a survey. A major source of information is the rich oral tradition, including songs and folk stories, of the tribal groups. Besides, the researcher has also been involved in initiating participatory spatial mapping of the hamlets as part of building up a critical awareness among the tribesfolk alongside generating data on their living conditions including housing, sanitation, energy, education, and health facilities.
P. V. Shoba has looked into the issues of Atrocities against women and understanding gender justice. This study is an effort to understand the possibility/impossibility of gender justice under the existing processes of law and institutions of the State based on the existing reported crime. The researcher analyses data on crime against women collected from the Pattambi police station area of Malappuram taluk for the period 1990-'98.
On the basis of the information collected from the First Information Report Index of the police station, she is in the process of doing case studies keeping in mind the nature of the crime. This part involves in-depth interviews with the victim of violence, her family, and other persons involved. The researcher also intends to conduct a survey of selected households in Ongallur panchayat to get an idea of general response to violence against women, as well as the role of institutions such as family and marriage in dictating specific practices for the two genders in the context of the possibility of violence.
Usha Venkitakrishnan in her study entitled Rape victims in Kerala - a case study, attempts to study the ramifications of rape by identifying and analysing the physical, psychological, and social aspects of injury inflicted upon women/girls who are raped. The study is being conducted in the context of the increasing incidence of crime against women in Kerala (Table 12.2).
The researcher will identify specific cases for intensive case study. Inquiry will be conducted into the family of the injured woman. The response of the family towards the woman after the crime in contrast to her position in the family prior to it. Emerging from an understanding of the specific and multiple ramifications of rape on women, the researcher will address questions of how institutions such as the police, the crime investigation agencies, the judiciary, the law, the medical agencies, and NGOs could function in a supportive role.
The study by Lizy James, Psycho-social dynamics of families with special reference to family courts based on the experience of the family court at Thrissur, grapples with the problems associated with increasing marital disharmony and breakdown of marriages in Kerala. The approach of counsellors in the family courts was to strive towards reconciliation of discord between marital partners, though such discord involves more than just the conjugal unit. The researcher, a counsellor, selected all the cases referred to her since 1995 for analysis. The study was based on a sample of 233 couples who attended the court since 1995.
There were two broad categories of cases that came before the courts. One in which the original petitions referred to cases for divorce, restitution of conjugal rights, custody of children, and recovery of property given to the other party at the time of marriage. Such petitions increased from 477 in 1995 to 860 in 1997 and in the first eight months of 1998, 566 cases were already before the court. The second type of cases filed before the family court was for maintenance. Their number increased much more slowly from 333 in 1995 to 387 in 1997.
The researcher observed that a majority of the petitioners at the family court were women (64 per cent) and that they were more affected by marital discord. The major reasons for friction were physical and mental cruelty, marital infidelity, and alcoholism of the husband. Alcoholism, drug addiction, and physical and mental cruelty were seen to go hand in hand with cases of alcoholic husbands ill-treating their wives and children. The violence engendered by the situation was traumatic not only for the wife and husband but also for other family members especially children. Discord was seen to surface in the early years of marriage with 67 per cent of marriages in the court being of a marital duration of 10 years or less. Through selected case studies, the researcher illustrates the different dimensions of marital discord as well as the process involved in counselling and attempting reconciliation. The discussion throws light on the generative aspects of discord and the need for comprehensive and multi-pronged approaches to tackle the issue.
Besides thinking of ways of helping married people cope with stress, which the researcher categorises as the curative programmes, including the provision of counselling and family support systems, she suggests preventive measures at a more general societal level including early interventions at the school level and with adolescents and youth to foster healthy adjustment. This would include breaking the regimentation of information on marriage and sexuality. She sees an important role for the panchayat bodies in both rehabilitation of affected women (particularly the divorced who are without support) and in creating a healthy environment for children and youth to grow.
The structural character of violence against women, specific to the Akam, the matrilineal joint family of Mappila groups in Malabar, is the striking aspect of K. Ajitha's study of Violence against women in a Muslim community in Kuttichira area of Kozhikode. The Akam, which features the matrilocality of marriages, is both a physical residential unit and a concept of family. Property relations within this household are more complicated than within the normed family. As a residential unit, it houses large number (often 25 and more) of married couples, who however, often maintain clear spatial and material distinctions. For instance, under one roof, families of women, who share a matrilineage, maintain separate cooking equipment and living apartments. While many of these separations are responses to the demands for change, at another level, these living quarters are witness to time-worn attitudes towards women and girl children that disable them in many ways. For one, the age at marriage of girls is much below the State average and in many cases, such early marriage effectively prevents education of girls beyond the secondary school level. There are other related forms of violence against women that this institution stands witness to since women are, for most part of their lives, confined to the Akam.
The researcher finds a small but significant tendency in recent years, to move away from the Akam to the more 'modern' family. While this tendency reflects aspirations towards the modern nuclear family, it combines aspects of the Akam especially in retaining the matrilocality of marriages. The researcher has documented exhaustively socio-economic and cultural practices of the Akam and attempts to find the linkages between these practices, the more recent changes emerging consequent on the influx of foreign funds from male-centered migrations particularly to the Gulf countries and particular constructions of gender roles that lead to forms of violence against women.
An exploratory study of the outcome of pro-women legislation and litigation on women-related cases in Pathanamthitta district is the project undertaken by P. V. Vijayamma. Several legislations enacted in the post-independence period are perceived as being in favour of women. These include the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and its subsequent amendments, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986, and The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technique (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994. There have also been amendments in this category to several existing legislations.
How effective have these enactments and provisions been in women-related litigation? What are the gaps in the law and in judicial and legal processes that come in the way of achieving justice for women? The researcher proposes to address these questions by analysing cases of offences against women that have come to the courts of Pathanamthitta district between 1993 and 1999.
She is studying three kinds of offences: matrimonial offences or those offences committed within the framework of a marriage such as dowry-related offences, abetment of suicide, cruelty, and violence; sexual offences including rape, adultery, bigamy and obscenity and other offences including those offences not considered under the first two categories. The researcher is in the process of collecting data on specific women-related cases from the Judicial First Class Magistrate's courts in four centres of Pathanamthitta district (Adoor, Tiruvalla, Ranni and Pathanamthitta).
K. Muraleedharan's study on Dynamics of people's participation: with special reference to women's participation in the local level planning in Kerala is concerned about institution-building at the local level in the process of decentralised planning now being attempted in Kerala. Prominent among such institutions are the self-help groups, ayalkoottams, and grama sabhas. This study will analyse the nature and quality of participation of women in these and related institutions. The researcher would examine whether participation is active, passive or decisive. For this purpose he has collected information on participation of men and women in the grama sabhas in two grama panchayats of Thrissur district between 1996 and 1999. In addition, he will conduct a household survey of 200 randomly selected households from two selected wards of the two grama panchayats.
There is the danger of reproducing gender role stereotypes into the recently reformulated local institutions. The 73rd and 74th amendments introducing 33 per cent reservation for women in local institutions is a measure to guard against such a danger and to initiate momentum towards redressing existing inequalities. Yet it is probably at the leadership level that women face the most difficult conditions, precisely because of the way in which power relations are defined in society. The study by S. Radha on Political leadership of women in local bodies in Kerala attempts to assess the dimensions of women's leadership in local bodies.
It will examine the following: the socio-economic background of women members and the hurdles in understanding the problems encountered by them as elected members; the extent to which they have been able to exercise their decision-making roles; and whether they have been able to bring into the agenda of the panchayats issues close to women and children. To collect primary data the researcher will rely on a survey among women members of selected panchayats and municipalities in all the regions of the State, supplemented by discussions with women members and panchayat officials.
C. S. Meenakshi has studied Women's participation in rural housing schemes being implemented in Kerala. She has made a preliminary assessment of the process of disbursement of housing projects in the context of the decentralised planning. She seeks answer to the question whether women go beyond being beneficiaries of schemes and have become part of the planning and implementation of housing activity. Her understanding is that gender issues are related to other aspects of housing, particularly finance application of low cost methods and NGO participation.
The schemes taken up for study - the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Million Wells Scheme (MWS), and CAPART-initiated scheme - target rural people below the poverty line (BPL). While the first two schemes were implemented directly by the government (DRDA), the third was implemented through an NGO, the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development (Costford). To study the first two schemes, 14 panchayats in the Taliparamba block were selected; 13 panchayats in Thrissur district were selected for studying the Capart-Costford scheme.
Under decentralised planning, the implementation of DRDA schemes has undergone change right from the stage of selection of beneficiaries. Under IAY, DRDA only has to disburse funds to the block panchayat and report quarterly progress to the Central administration. Schemes executed earlier by DRDA are now transferred to the grama panchayats. The researcher notes that the new planning process has facilitated a more transparent and much quicker process of beneficiary selection. Importantly, she found those government schemes providing land to the landless and schemes for housing were inadequately linked.
She finds that women's participation in the different aspects of housing including, the making of policy, land rights, construction activities and financial management, has been at best secondary and that on these aspects there was little variation across schemes. For instance, she found that the land upon which houses were built were registered in the names of men and that finances were usually controlled by men; this even where gold and other valuables belonging to women were mortgaged to raise finance. Hence her study reveals the need for comprehensive interventions that would enable a women's perspective in housing.
The study by B. Sreekumar is on A critical evaluation of the programme 'Women in Agriculture' - a central sector scheme in Palakkad district. Experiential insight that women's productivity in agriculture was constrained by lack of training, credit and other farming inputs led the Centre to devise the 'Women in Agriculture' scheme, to be implemented on a pilot basis in one district each in various States.
The scheme was started in Palakkad district in 1994. The scheme was formulated to mobilise and motivate women farmers using a group approach. The groups were formed based on the activities to promote self-help and thrift among them. The study seeks to understand and evaluate the scheme in terms of (i) the determinants of women's participation; (ii) the organisational set-up and functioning of self-help groups; (iii) the extent of welfare generated under the scheme and its sustainability; and (iv) the future possibilities and replicability of the scheme in other locations.
For the purpose of the study, six villages were selected randomly at the rate of one village per block of the district. The sample of beneficiaries comprised 120 women; 20 women from each village. The beneficiaries were small and marginal farmers. The study included a sample of 60 non-beneficiaries with comparable socio-economic characteristics. Information was collected using a detailed, pre-tested questionnaire.
It was found that beneficiary women farmers rated the scheme between effective and very effective. Economic motivation and entrepreneurial behaviour of the beneficiaries was positive and comparatively higher than that of the non-beneficiaries.
On several counts the members of the self-help thrift groups, differed from the non-beneficiary women. The former was found to fare better in terms of their contribution to family income. Members of the scheme were better motivated and had a more positive attitude towards farming. Further, they were also better placed in terms of socio-economic networks. They have contacts with extension agencies and are able to access information. Such contact, however, was not always up to the desirable level. Significantly, education was found to have a positive correlation with the extent of participation.
It was, however, found that members had no choice in the selection of the training and the nature of enterprises. The type of training was decided by the Department of Agriculture. A major gap was the lack of credit and market linkages with the programme.
In the study entitled Constraints on women entrepreneurship development in Kerala - family, social, and psychological factors, Nirmala Karuna D'Cruz, notes that though 15.4 per cent of all registered entrepreneurs at the Industries Department was women, barely 549 (10 per cent) such units were functioning successfully in 1997. Besides sickness, there were problems peculiar to women entrepreneurs such as they often operated as fronts for men. For the study, a sample of women entrepreneurs was drawn from those that had registered with the District Industries Centre after 1994. Out of the 400 units approached for survey, 200 were functional, and as many as 84 could not be identified. The researcher has also held a two-day consultation workshop with the 200 women surveyed. This was done to get more information on the entrepreneurs' perceptions of their problems, to explore constraints arising from the family, and to identify 20 women for case study.
Rediscovering gender and sexuality in the urban family of Kerala: developing an insider's perspective is the project taken up by Saji P. Jacob. In dealing with the family, mainstream sociology has been preoccupied with its structure depending largely on demographic variables. Changes in this approach became evident in the late 1970s emerging in no small measure with feminist critique of the ideology of the 'monolithic' family.
In developing this critique, Saji P Jacob seeks to inquire into the inner dynamics of the modern urban family in Kerala using two fundamental concepts and practices of the family: gender and sexuality. Both are structured and regulated within families in ways that are not often visible or easy to break into, making them also little explored areas in the study of families. This study is informed by the rising instability of the family in the modern time, while recognising spatial and cultural distinctions, specifically in the implications of urbanisation and religion.
The researcher attempts to develop a perspective of the family from within it by focussing on the changing perceptions and practices of gender relations and sexuality. He also seeks information on the manifestation of gender roles in the family. The study will draw upon surveys conducted among 100 randomly selected households from one ward each of Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam, and Kozhikode. Anticipating difficulty in talking about gender and sexuality, the researcher conducted focus group discussion with family counsellors, psychologists, women activists, teachers, and sex workers in order to find an entry point into the topic of inquiry. Interview schedules were prepared drawing upon insights received from these discussions.
V. T. Usha, in her project entitled Gender, media, and signification: women and television in Kerala, makes an attempt to understand the image of women in Kerala as projected by the popular mass media. Using feminist theories, the researcher will re-examine the interdependence of the virtual image and its real-life counterparts, built into the Malayali psyche through the popular television. She will do so by studying the projection of women on prime-time television and its impact on local viewership. Socio-cultural, economic, and psychological factors that work into this process will be taken into account. For the purpose of this study, she has included programmes on three Malayalam channels: Doordarshan, Asianet, and Surya TV. A general analysis of the prime-time programmes on each will be followed up with responses from a target group of audiences. The target group comprises students, housewives, working women, and others. Through a questionnaire-based survey, household interviews, and group discussions, information will be collected in two localities (one urban and one rural) in Thiruvananthapuram district.
Reeba Varkey has taken up a project to examine the Impact of male migration to Gulf countries in the emigrant households of Kottayam municipality. As part of the impact of male migration to the Gulf countries on emigrant households, the study attempts to capture two aspects, i.e., the position of women in these households as emerging from the changes afforded by migration and the problems faced by women - social, economic, and psychological. It has been noted that male outmigration influences changes in the dynamics of the family altering the relations of power among wife, children, parents, and other relatives of the male migrant. In this context this study raises the following questions: to what extent has the social and economic capital of the households, arising from male outmigration, enabled different sections of male migrant families back home and what have been the costs? The researcher proposes to study 100 of the 338 emigrant households identified in Kottayam municipality. She will address her questions to three sets of respondents i.e., the head of household, the male migrant's wife, and male migrant's children.
T. K. Anandi in her study on Local history of women's participation in the Freedom Movement and socio-political movements in Kerala: documentation and analysis looks into the process of marginalisation of sections of society based on the categories of gender, class, and caste. This process is reflected most acutely in conventional history writing, where sections on the margins are near invisible. This study attempts to go against the grain of dominant historiography by documenting and analysing the experience of women in social and political movements in the districts of the Malabar region in the first half of the 20th century. The researcher notes that women's participation was particularly high in livelihood-related struggles such as for the right to collect fodder and firewood from forests and wastelands of landlords, though the relatively low importance given to such struggles reveals the dominant notions of priority events and issues. Documentation will include audio-visual recording of interviews with women who took part in movements but whose role is in danger of being forgotten. Conventional sources of history like archival material, writing in newspapers and journals will be used, besides exploring the possibilities of oral history.
The study of Personality variables, psychological resources and socio-economic problems of destitute women in Kerala by Razeena Padmam has three objectives: (i) to understand the personality profile, psychological resources, and psycho-social needs of destitute women living in Mahila Mandirs in Kerala, (ii) to examine critically the rehabilitation programmes of the Social Welfare Department, and (iii) to identify and probe into the problems faced by destitute women residents of the Mahila Mandirs and by the home authorities in implementing the social welfare schemes.
The researcher hopes to come up with information required for restructuring and redesigning of such homes. The study is based on information collected about the destitute residents of all the 14 Mahila Mandirs run by the Department of Social Welfare in Kerala. A sample of destitute women (of equal number) from homes run by NGOs agencies was also taken for comparison. The researcher used several assessment tools including Demographic Data Sheet, Personality Inventory, Adjustment Inventory, and Emotional Maturity Scale to assess the condition of destitute women. Achamma John has studied the Socio-economic and occupational status of Dalit women in Kottarakkara and Kunnathoor taluks of Kollam district. The study aims at (i) understanding the present position of Dalit women in terms of their labour force participation as well as their position in the family and community; (ii) evaluating the implementation and impact of SC/ST schemes on the community; and (iii) using these findings to build greater awareness among Dalit women about development programmes. The study focuses on specific Dalit groups i.e., Pulayas, Kuravas, Parayas, Thandans, and Christian converts from these communities.
First through a survey of existing work and then in her survey of two panchayats, the researcher documents the acute position of Dalit households in terms of access to vital resources such as land. Their participation in political processes of the modern state was found poor. She finds that several factors constrain these social groups from utilising development programmes. For instance, little attempt has gone into creating awareness among them of the programmes intended for them. Children from these social groups record high dropout rates from school due to poverty. The researcher notes that in Kerala 5 per cent of the Dalit households did not possess land, 44 per cent was settled on small plots of 1-10 cents, and 39 per cent held land between 11 and 50 cents. Significantly, 22 per cent of Dalit households still held only kudikidappu (hutment dwelling) land and 75 per cent of Dalit Christians depended on wage labour for their livelihood.
The researcher found that in the sample households, which she surveyed intensively, literacy rates were well below the State average. Not only were dropout rates high among their children, the rates were higher among girls. It was found that dowry which did not have a historical basis in the Dalit communities was being increasingly demanded and paid in recent years.