How to Cite
Desai-Stephens, A. (2018). The Age of Aspiration? Music Classes and the Limits of Gendered Self-transformation in Mumbai. MUSICultures, 44(1). Retrieved from https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/view/26079
Abstract
Abstract: Contemporary India is marked by salient aspirational discourses, yet not everyone is understood to be capable of aspirational transformation. This article focuses on middle-aged “housewives” studying Hindi film song in a Mumbai music institute. Analyzing the professional visions they held alongside the domestic constraints they faced, I show how gender, generation, and life stage complicated their aspirational mobility. Yet, even as these housewives were marginalized within “Aspirational India,” they used training in Hindi film song to remake themselves as singers and expressive selves. This work of musical self-transformation, I argue, made them visible as aspirational subjects in liberalizing India.- The author retains copyright over the work.
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