International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)

Based on extensive fieldwork in Calcutta, this book provides the first ethnography of how middle-class women in India understand and experience economic change through transformations of family life. It explores their ideas, practices and experiences of marriage, childbirth, reproductive change and their children's education, and addresses the impact that globalization is having on the new middle classes in Asia more generally from a domestic perspective.

By focusing on maternity, the book explores subjective understandings of the way intimate relationships and the family are affected by India's liberalization policies and the neo-liberal ideologies that accompany through an analysis of often competing ideologies and multiple practices. And by drawing attention to women's agency as wives, mothers and grandmothers within these new frameworks, Domestic Goddesses discusses the experiences of different age groups affected by these changes. Through a careful analysis of women's narratives, the domestic sphere is shown to represent the key site for the remaking of Indian middle-class citizens in a global world.

'An original and ethnographically rich study of the urban family and of the roles women play as wives, mothers and home-makers in the creation and reproduction of a new Indian middle-class identity. It makes a significant contribution to current anthropological discussions of how kinship and marriage systems in developing societies are impacted by globalization and the rise of consumer-oriented economies.'
Sylvia Vatuk, University of Illinois, USA

'Domestic Goddesses is an informed and sensitive account of the intimate lives and concerns of middle class women as they negotiate modernity in Calcutta today. Donner's work on the "gendered city" makes an important contribution to the urban anthropology of South Asia and to understandings of motherhood as shaped by it.'
Maya Unnithan, University of Sussex, UK

'This book is without any doubt a great contribution to current anthropological discussions on how globalization and consumer oriented economies change and influence the kinship and marriage systems, as well as on how the class hierarchies are produced and reproduced in the urban setting. It is a must read for any anthropologist or a student of anthropology concerned with the modernity in developing countries, globalization and kinship.'
anropologi.info

'Donner makes a major contribution by identifying and establishing the domestic sphere as the key site of the remaking of the Indian middle-class in the contexts of globalization, post-liberalization and neo-liberal ideologies.'
Suomen Antropologi

'Domestic Goddesses is detailed, nuanced, well-researched and with 'an abundance of references. It brings together theoretical positions and empirical topics that generally are discussed apart and thus Donner succeeds in her aim of challenging "simplistic assumptions". Most importantly, by combining two strands within social anthropology that generally are kept apart, namely urban anthropology and what can be termed an anthropology of the household, this monograph contributes new, and sometimes unexpected, insights to the anthropology of India.'
Journal of International Women's Studies