{"id":2338,"date":"2016-04-07T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T22:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southasia.washington.edu\/?page_id=2338"},"modified":"2016-04-07T14:43:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T22:43:10","slug":"p-ramamurthy-interview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Priti Ramamurthy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n

Priti Ramamurthy at the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies 2014 Fall Reception.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Priti Ramamurthy is Professor and\u00a0Chair of\u00a0Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.\u00a0Ramamurthy\u2019s articulation of feminist commodity chain analysis, as a way to track the creation of value and gendered identities, is an important methodological contribution to studies of gender and globalization.\u00a0Her interdisciplinary publications appear in\u00a0Gendered Commodity Chains: Seeing Women\u2019s Work and Households in Global Production<\/a> (Stanford, 2014) and Marrying in South Asia: Shifting concepts, Changing Practices in a Globalising World <\/a>(Orient Blackswan, 2014). She is a co-editor and co-author of The Modern Girl Around the World: Modernity, Consumption, Globalization <\/a>(Duke, 2008).<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u00a0was the\u00a0Director of the South Asia\u00a0Center from\u00a0January 2007. In\u00a0Spring 2006, Amy Bhatt, a PhD student\u00a0in the\u00a0Women Studies program,\u00a0had the chance to sit\u00a0down with Priti Ramamurthy, Associate\u00a0Professor of Women Studies, to\u00a0talk about her early fieldwork experiences,\u00a0her current research on cotton\u00a0body politics, and how she spent her time on sabbatical.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The interview below\u00a0was originally\u00a0published in the Washington South Asia Report Volume XXII, Number 1, Autumn 2006<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

How long have you been at the\u00a0University of Washington?<\/em><\/p>\n

Since January of 1998.<\/p>\n

Where were you prior to that?<\/em><\/p>\n

At Syracuse University. At Syracuse,\u00a0<\/span>I was Visiting Assistant Professor\u00a0<\/span>in the Maxwell School and I was\u00a0<\/span>also Associate Director of Women\u00a0<\/span>Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was there anything in particular\u00a0that brought you to the University\u00a0of Washington?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, well, the job was actually advertised\u00a0as a Women and International\u00a0Economic Development job. I\u00a0don\u2019t think I could have asked for a\u00a0better fit in what I wanted to do and\u00a0the location I wanted to do it from.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me a little bit about\u00a0your earlier research?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sure. My dissertation research was\u00a0on the political economy of canal\u00a0irrigation in South India. The kind of\u00a0puzzle I was trying to solve was why\u00a0irrigation canals, many of which have\u00a0been put in by the British as drought\u00a0relief works, were being used in very\u00a0productive ways, even though they\u00a0had been designed as protective systems.\u00a0I knew from reading the papers,\u00a0that there were some pockets in the\u00a0tail ends of these canal systems that\u00a0were actually getting water because\u00a0there were people who were collectively\u00a0organizing to get water to those\u00a0villages.\u00a0So there were two questions really:\u00a0one was why is it that canal systems\u00a0that had been put in as protective and\u00a0drought relief works were not really\u00a0serving those purposes, but rather\u00a0were being used as productive canal\u00a0systems. And then the second was\u00a0were people actually able to change\u00a0the natural ecology and the political\u00a0ecology of canals, so that some tail-end villages were actually getting the\u00a0water, was it filtering down to people\u00a0who were smaller farmers? (What was\u00a0the impact on) people who were of\u00a0the scheduled castes, who were in this\u00a0area \u2013 Mala and Madiga-the two castes\u00a0who are at the bottom of the caste\u00a0hierarchy? And what were the impacts\u00a0on people who were landless?\u00a0Also as part of that work, I actually\u00a0found that very productive agriculture\u00a0uses a lot of women\u2019s labor. So, my\u00a0work became a critique of some of the\u00a0work that was done in North India on\u00a0the Green Revolution, which had\u00a0shown that women had been displaced\u00a0by mechanization and that as\u00a0families moved into Green Revolution\u00a0agriculture, women (became) housewives.\u00a0This was simply not happening\u00a0in the south where women were\u00a0working more and more. Moreover,\u00a0women, even of the land-owning\u00a0castes, were still working in the field\u00a0as supervisors. So, (what) came out\u00a0of my work was something that I had\u00a0always been interested in as a student,\u00a0which was how agricultural relations\u00a0are gendered relations.<\/p>\n

Much of your field work has been\u00a0done in Andhra Pradesh. How has\u00a0it been working in that region, particularly\u00a0in terms of working as a\u00a0scholar who also has roots there?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done most of my intensive\u00a0work in Andhrapradesh. I\u2019ve also done a brief spell of\u00a0work in Karnataka. Its been quite a trip actually! I\u00a0come from a very urban family – middle-class urban family. And the first\u00a0time I went into a village to do a survey,\u00a0I was 16-years-old. I had finished\u00a0high school and I a six-month gap\u00a0between school and college, so I volunteered\u00a0in this organization called\u00a0Mother and Child Healthcare. It was\u00a0funded by CARE and they started\u00a0mid-day feeding programs for pregnant\u00a0and lactating women and children. The person who was running\u00a0it was someone who had been an\u00a0Italian nun and given up the order\u00a0and had come to India and started\u00a0this NGO. This was in the 1970\u2019s,\u00a0so it was long before development\u00a0had been NGO-ized. And she just\u00a0entrusted me with going off and\u00a0doing a survey in these villages they\u00a0were working in (to find out)\u00a0whether the program was working\u00a0or not. So I literally went door to\u00a0door, having never been to a village\u00a0before, or having done a social science\u00a0survey! And it was completely\u00a0mind-blowing, on several levels.\u00a0First, I had never really seen that\u00a0kind of poverty up front, where\u00a0children didn\u2019t even have (their)\u00a0basic nutritional needs met. I also\u00a0had not seen such obduracy around\u00a0sending girls to get the food. And\u00a0it wasn\u2019t just obduracy that was\u00a0cultural, because there was also a\u00a0major road that some of these kids\u00a0have to cross. So very soon, I\u00a0could see that this was a complicated\u00a0process by which people were\u00a0being denied basic needs.\u00a0One day, the jeep that was supposed\u00a0to drop me off and pick me\u00a0up forgot to pick me up. So here I\u00a0was, 16, alone, and it was nightfall.\u00a0I was in this village which was a 20\u00a0or 30 minute walk to the nearest\u00a0phone or the nearest highway. And\u00a0there was this disabled man, who\u00a0walked me to the gas station, where\u00a0there was a phone so that I could\u00a0call the office and tell them that\u00a0they had forgotten me. And then\u00a0he waited with me until the jeep\u00a0actually came back. And it was\u00a0both frightening and it was so productive\u00a0of what humanity does, and\u00a0the kindness that people can give.\u00a0It stands out in my memory as\u00a0really being something that was
\nboth so humane and so frightening.\u00a0So I guess that was a marker of\u00a0when I thought I would be doing
\nsome work in development.\u00a0Then I went back in the 1980\u2019s\u00a0to do fieldwork for the first time.\u00a0The city, Kurnool was really a hick\u00a0town. There were open drains,\u00a0there was nowhere to live. I (first)\u00a0got turned out of the three hotels\u00a0that there were because I was a\u00a0single woman and they thought I\u00a0was a prostitute. I actually ended up\u00a0staying in one of the hotels with a\u00a0prostitute three doors down from\u00a0me. I would take the village bus or\u00a0the village Tempo, which was\u00a0packed. It was supposed to seat 8\u00a0and there would be 25 people in it!\u00a0And chickens, and rice, and feed\u2026\u00a0But I would do a lot of great fieldwork\u00a0on those trips because you\u00a0would be sitting next to people.\u00a0And it was always people who\u00a0couldn\u2019t afford motorcycles, which\u00a0was the other major form of transportation.\u00a0And I would just chat\u00a0with them. And they would often\u00a0be the people who would introduce\u00a0me to other people in the village.<\/p>\n

So, some of your more recent\u00a0work has expanded away from\u00a0your earlier work with irrigation\u00a0and agriculture.\u00a0Could you tell\u00a0me a bit about what direction\u00a0your current research is headed\u00a0toward?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sure, my new work is going to be\u00a0on cotton body politics. I am calling\u00a0it \u201ccotton body politics, intergenerationality,\u00a0and social reproduction.\u201d\u00a0This work is going to try\u00a0to question the relationship between\u00a0the crises in farming agriculture\u00a0and the crises in farming\u00a0families. And I am looking at the\u00a0crises in farming families as a series\u00a0of transformations in masculinities\u00a0and femininities. I am working on\u00a0cotton, which I have been working\u00a0on for the last several years now.\u00a0Cotton is really important as both a\u00a0major crop in Andhra and also to\u00a0think about questions of gender\u00a0and globalization, which my earlier\u00a0work has mapped out.\u00a0In terms of starkness, on the one\u00a0hand you have cotton suicides. So\u00a0something like 3,000 farmers,\u00a0mostly gendered male, have committed\u00a0suicide. The state has found\u00a0it very important to respond to the\u00a0issue of suicides and it becomes\u00a0something that is debated in the\u00a0public arena between intellectuals,\u00a0academics and NGOS. In the last\u00a0election in 2004, it was a huge issue,\u00a0which both the Telugu Desam\u00a0Party (TDP) and the Congress\u00a0brought up. It was a signal of the
\nfailure of the development state.\u00a0One could even argue that it is\u00a0leading to some changes in the way\u00a0the state provisions agriculture. For\u00a0instance, Manmohan Singh, the\u00a0first thing he did after he became\u00a0prime minister was fly to villages in\u00a0Andhrapradesh. There were helipads built\u00a0so that he could fly and give out\u00a0compensation out for suicides. It\u00a0was such a public statement of\u00a0change.\u00a0Now on the other hand, Andhrapradesh\u00a0also has the highest incidence of\u00a0infertility rates in the country. And\u00a0there has been practically no work\u00a0on the social implications of high\u00a0infertility rates, no academic research.\u00a0But if you talk to people in\u00a0the villages, they are linking this\u00a0with common pesticide use, which\u00a0is terribly high. A whole lot of\u00a011\u00a0anxiety is growing around modern\u00a0forms of farming, new forms of\u00a0education, a number of things.\u00a0So one of the things that I am\u00a0going to be studying is how in such\u00a0a pro-natalist society, where mothering\u00a0is so important for a woman\u2019s\u00a0identity, things like infertility \u2013 biological\u00a0aspects of being a person \u2013\u00a0are playing out. I\u2019m going to be\u00a0interviewing people, both at the\u00a0villages and at the infertility clinics\u00a0in Kurnool and Hyderabad about\u00a0what infertility means as a social\u00a0process. And so this notion of\u00a0cotton body politics is really going\u00a0to allow me to study a range of\u00a0ways in which the new economy of\u00a0agriculture, the new biotechnology,\u00a0especially around cotton and BT\u00a0cotton, what are being called new\u00a0bio-political governmentalities, and\u00a0the way the state is reaching out to\u00a0people, are affecting femininities,\u00a0masculinities, and the possibilities\u00a0of reproduction.<\/p>\n

Are you currently on sabbatical\u00a0(the fall quarter of 2006)? What\u00a0do your research plans look like\u00a0for the next couple of months?<\/em><\/p>\n

I am actually working on a book\u00a0project during my sabbatical, which\u00a0is on a feminist commodity chain\u00a0analysis of cotton. Its called \u201cOne\u00a0Hundred Percent Cotton.\u201d I am\u00a0writing it as an undergraduate textbook,\u00a0to be used in Women\u2019s Studies,\u00a0Anthropology, South Asian\u00a0Studies, and classes on gender and\u00a0globalization. Then I\u2019m going to be\u00a0going from end of June to November\u00a0to do fieldwork. I will be updating\u00a0some of the work that I am\u00a0doing on cotton in terms of changing\u00a0agrarian relations, femininities,\u00a0masculinities, these processes that\u00a0I\u2019ve been talking with you about.\u00a0And then I am also going to start\u00a0my work on inter-generationality\u00a0and social reproduction. I\u2019m going\u00a0to use the American Institute of\u00a0Indian Studies Senior Fellowship to\u00a0go back for next summer, June to\u00a0September, when I\u2019m not teaching\u00a0to do more of that work.<\/p>\n

Has there been anything that\u00a0you\u2019ve been able to do for yourself\u00a0while you\u2019ve been on sabbatical?\u00a0I\u2019ve heard rumors of\u00a0your appearance at some South\u00a0Asia Studies cricket games.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes! I have been enjoying sabbatical.\u00a0I\u2019ve finished up one Modern\u00a0Girl essay. I\u2019ve been working\u00a0on the Modern Girl Around the\u00a0World Project for five years now\u00a0with my colleagues. We have an\u00a0edited volume, which is currently\u00a0under review. Other than that, I\u2019ve\u00a0just been enjoying sabbatical a lot.\u00a0I\u2019ve been reading, both scholarly\u00a0stuff that I\u2019ve been wanting to read\u00a0for a long time and I\u2019ve been reading\u00a0fiction, which has been wonderful.\u00a0Just spending more time with\u00a0family and relaxing, Netflix!<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for sharing\u00a0your time and stories with us!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Priti Ramamurthy is Professor and\u00a0Chair of\u00a0Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.\u00a0Ramamurthy\u2019s articulation of feminist commodity chain analysis, as a way to track the creation of value and gendered identities, is an important methodological contribution to studies of gender and globalization.\u00a0Her interdisciplinary publications appear in\u00a0Gendered Commodity Chains: Seeing Women\u2019s Work and Households<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2338","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInterview with Priti Ramamurthy - South Asia Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Interview with Priti Ramamurthy - South Asia Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Priti Ramamurthy is Professor and\u00a0Chair of\u00a0Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.\u00a0Ramamurthy\u2019s articulation of feminist commodity chain analysis, as a way to track the creation of value and gendered identities, is an important methodological contribution to studies of gender and globalization.\u00a0Her interdisciplinary publications appear in\u00a0Gendered Commodity Chains: Seeing Women\u2019s Work and Households\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Asia Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/southasia.washington.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/priti-interview-2-300x139.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/\",\"name\":\"Interview with Priti Ramamurthy - South Asia Center\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/southasia.washington.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/priti-interview-2-300x139.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-07T22:43:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-07T22:43:10+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/southasia.washington.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/priti-interview-2-300x139.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/southasia.washington.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/priti-interview-2-300x139.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/p-ramamurthy-interview\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Interview with Priti Ramamurthy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/\",\"name\":\"South Asia Center\",\"description\":\"Just another The Henry M. 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