Jennifer D. Ortegren, "Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2023)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Sep 21, 2023 · 40m

Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism (Oxford UP, 2023) is a contemporary ethnography of class mobility among Hindus in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Focusing on women in Pulan, an emerging middle-class neighborhood of Udaipur, Jennifer D. Ortegren argues that upward class mobility is not just a socio-economic process, but also a religious one. Central to Hindu women's upward class mobility is negotiating dharma, the moral and ethical groundings of Hindu worlds. As women experiment with middle-class consumer and lifestyle practices, they navigate…