Thursday, 5 November 2015

RC 1 - NOV 05

Directions for questions 51 to 54: The passage given below is followed by a set of four questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question. 

Economic liberalization and globalization have facilitated unprecedented movement of people across the borders, which demands a new theory of citizenship in order to formulate the aspirations of people who simultaneously inhabit a geographical space away from the homeland and maintain strong ties with it. Appadurai while describing the technological and cultural implication of globalization contends that the global cultural flows of ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes and financescapes – denoting a world characterized by people and objects in motion – enable "the plurality of imagined worlds", new ways of imagining ourselves outside and apart from the nation-state. This endeavor to imagine transnational conditions outside the nation-state has led to various theories of citizenship, such as post-national citizenship, transnational citizenship, multi-level citizenship, flexible citizenship, cosmopolitan citizenship and global citizenship. 

Through the prism of Mira Nair's film, Namesake, and Sarah Gavron's film, Brick Lane, the ideals enshrined in the notions of 'transnational citizenship' or 'flexible citizenship' and the gamut of cultural conflict so beautifully encapsulated may be viewed with an ostensible aim to explain the underlying nuances. The choice of these two films is strategic as both films have women as their central character; both of them represent migration from the Indian sub-continent – however, Namesake captures Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli's migration to New York, whereas, Brick Lane depicts Mr Ahmed and Nazneen's transnational migration to England; both the films represent ethnic Bengali experiences of migration even though the commonality of ethnic Bengali culture has been ruptured by the partition of India (1947) – the Gangulis are from Calcutta, once the imperial capital of British India, whereas, the Ahmeds are from Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

Both the films have women as their central characters who accompany their husbands to a foreign land, and, eventually, recover their own subjectivity. The increased migration of women across borders in professional and non-professional sectors under the impact of globalization has resulted in terming the new trend as 'feminization of globalization.' The economic opportunities provided by globalization have allowed women from across the globe to transgress stereotypical gender roles by subverting domestic/public dichotomy. Women from the traditional societies have learned to negotiate the boundaries of domestic and public spaces by performing professional roles in the public sphere while, simultaneously, performing the typical gendered roles in the domestic sphere. Social scientists, Tastsoglou and Dobrowolsky write, "Women (im)migrants cross, contest and reconfigure borders problematizing not only the legal and political dimensions of citizenship, but also social, economic, and psychological ones (i.e. in terms of cultural belonging)." In both Namesake and Brick Lane, women protagonists often negotiate the uneven terrains of cultural citizenship in the host countries because the men have already empowered themselves as the sole protectors of political citizenship by virtue of their access to the public. Women in these films are embodiments of citizenship as practice, which demands a complex skill of negotiation, adjustment, and the cultivation of a sense of affective belonging. The sub-continental women in the diasporic space often embody the dual task of negotiating a patriarchal domestic space, which imposes the roles of ideal wives and mothers, and, also, negotiating hitherto uncharted, hostile public space replete with images of suspicion, racism, and discrimination. Ashima in Namesake and Nazneen in Brick Lane, trespass the boundaries of domestic space through the practice and performance of cultural citizenship, "the everyday experience of national belonging beyond legal citizenship."


Q.51

The passage suggests which of the following about immigration of women?
a   Women immigration has brought changes only within the ambit of legal citizenship.
b  Women immigrants have re-defined the concept of citizenship.
c  In today's age, women from the entire world successfully maneuver through their personal and professional lives.
d  The journey of transition from the domestic sphere to the public space has been relatively easy for women.

Q52

The first paragraph performs which of the following functions in the passage?
a   The paragraph provides a distinction between the different theories of citizenship and inclination to be outside the nation-state.
b  The paragraph defines the various theories of citizenship.
c  It explains the need for change in the definition of citizenship and offers new ways of defining it.
d  A liberal economy has fuelled the aspirations of people towards attaining a legal citizenship of the host country.



Q.53
Which of the following options would the author most agree with?
a   In the long run, cultural citizenship will be principally defined by women immigrants.
b  Racism and discrimination against women will prove to be insurmountable stumbling blocks for women immigrants.
c  Women remain subservient to their husband when the latter migrates to a foreign country.
d  The women characters of Namesake and Brick Lane are very different from what we see in real life


Q.54 
According to the passage, Namesake and Brick Lane present.
a   two dissimilar aspects of ethnic Bengali identity.
b  two different scenarios of ethnic Bengali experiences before and after Independence.
c  contradictory socio-economic circumstances of the characters.
d  similar ethnic Bengali experiences of migration.
.

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