Gender, reputation, and social support: The dynamics of sociality and standing in rural South India

In rural South India, as everywhere, people turn to one another to find work, to get a loan to cover major expenses, and to pass the time in conversation. 

In this talk, Eleanor will draw on her long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two villages in Tamil Nadu to sketch out what seems to structure these supportive relationships that are so crucial to people’s livelihoods. 

Her focus will be on the entanglement of a person’s standing and their social support, and how this is fundamentally shaped by aspects of their identity, such as gender and caste. She will present a series of analyses based on the longitudinal, multiplex social support network data that she has gathered (namely exponential random graph models and stochastic actor-oriented models). 

Broadly, these analyses suggest that residents in these villages face different constraints on their actions, and so consequently channel their sociality differently. Eleanor will conclude by discussing the implications this has for social and economic inequality in these villages. 

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in social support.

This is a hybrid event and you can attend either virtually or in-person.

Related links

• QSS seminar series
• Quantitative Social Science (QSS)
• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)
• Social Research Institute