Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 2
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November 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
146
and my main concern is what significance lies underneath this representation. I examine the
ways in which this image has been constructed through ideas of history, space, landscape,
modernity and tradition. Unpacking these notions in the light of my in-depth ethnography, I
address how vendors and buyers frame and define their relationship with space and time.
After placing the market in relation to its historical and geo-political context, I argue
that the representation of passivity and the lack of agency have contributed to the maintaining
of elitist local and national powers. The use of space within the market informs a distinctive
cosmology, in which the landscape constitutes the main local organising principle. The
landscape is looked at as a cultural process, constantly renegotiated and re-contextualised.
The principal categories of food classification ‘wild’, ‘local’, and ‘foreign’ are explanatory
notions of a specific relationship between people, food and locality. The interaction between
vendors and buyers cannot be understood as a purely economic transaction. Their relationship
is articulated through a unique set of practices, which are analysed throughout this thesis.
Senses, social interactions, culinary knowledge, and conviviality contribute to the ability to
operate within the market. I look at my own ethnographic experience as a practical
‘apprenticeship’.
I also address the local ideas of tradition and modernity, mainly through the analysis
of the shared fears of being left behind and of losing control over the process of change. The
idea of modernisation as an ongoing process carries with it a sense of loss, of nostalgia for an
idealised past.
Dr Brigida Marovelli
obtained her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Brunel University, West
London. From 2010 to 2012 she taught anthropology and research methods in social sciences at
Brunel University and at Middlesex University. She was previously trained in Clinical and Social
Psychology at the University La Sapienza, Rome (Laurea cum laude) and in Medical Anthropology at
Brunel University (MSc). Her research interests include economic anthropology; ethnography in
urban areas, especially in the
Mediterranean region; the relationship between urban and rural
contexts; food production and consumption; space, place and landscape; anthropology of the senses.
A
s an independent anthropologist, she is currently preparing a monograph on the relationship
between space, history and identity in a Sicilian fish market and several articles for publication. Dr
Marovelli is a member of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences and
of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore.
Name:
Mahima Nayar
Affiliation:
Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Awarded:
August 2013, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
A Sociological Study of Women with Psycho-Social Distress in a Resettlement Colony in
Delhi
This thesis is a study of the experience of psychosocial distress faced by women living in a
low-income neighbourhood in Delhi, India. It explores the intersections between socio-
