Owners, creditors and traders: Women in late colonial Calcutta

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-456
Author(s):  
Ishita Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Poor Women ◽  
Banking Business ◽  
The One

This article tries to reconstruct the world of the property-owning, mortgage-holding and money-lending women in late colonial Bengal and especially in Calcutta, the commercial capital of British India until the First World War. It argues that as all poor women occupying the urban space were not either sex workers or domestic servants, similarly all middle-class women in colonial Calcutta were not dependent housewives, teachers and doctors. At least a section of them engaged in other gainful economic activities. However, existing scholarship sheds very little light on those women who chose other means of survival than the bhadramahila: those who bought and sold houses, lent money for interest, acquired mortgages, speculated in jute trade and even managed indigenous banking business. Evidence of court records suggests that they, along with the lady teacher, the lady doctor, the midwife and the social worker or later members of political organisations, could be found in considerable numbers in late colonial Calcutta. Due to the enactment of stringent laws to control moneylending, on the one hand, and the commercial decline of Calcutta, on the other hand, these women were possibly driven out of the shrinking market of the 1940s and 1950s.

scholarly journals Determining social capital by social accounting

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Welfare Economic ◽  
Financial Capital ◽  
Working Capital ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Social Accounting ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

Although social capital has been often debated in the last 20 years, there is a widely accepted definition missing and the approaches to measuring its size are not very well-developed. Therefore, the definitions of social capital are stated and analysed, whether they are appropriately designed also for measurement purposes. We end up with a division between capital consisting of real capital as fixed and working capital and financial capital on the one hand, and capitals, which are referring to human capital and social capital in a narrow sense on the other hand. The last two are named here as social capital. The stock of the first kind of capital can be expressed as net capital when the liabilities are deducted is booked to the final social balance, as well as the remainder of the stock accounts. The stock of the second one can be identified as social assets reduced by social liabilities. Non-commercial values of economic activities are gathered in social accounting. With social accounting there are several approaches, however most of them are not developed to such an extent that the social capital can be determined through an adequate ex-post analysis. A welfare economic oriented approach comprising a bookkeeping system helps to determine social capital. Based on the willingness to pay approach a commercial bookkeeping system and an additional social bookkeeping were designed where the respective “private” and additional social capital were verified. Both together show the total social capital related to an economic subject. The result is illustrated by such a social accounting for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Tartu for 2006. The author discusses the limits and possibilities of this kind of social capital determination.

scholarly journals A natureza (dos) nos fatos urbanos: produção do espaço e degradação ambiental

2001 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gislene PEREIRA
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Urban Policies ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

Este trabalho pretende discutir a relação entre o processo de construção do espaço urbano, a segregação socioespacial e a degradação ambiental. A urbanização crescente da população no Brasil tem feito com que os problemas decorrentes desse processo (carência de infra-estrutura, densificação de áreas inadequadas, degradação ambiental, segregação socioespacial) centralizem nas últimas décadas as discussões de governantes, técnicos e cientistas sociais. Cabe, então, perguntar: por que nossas cidades não têm a qualidade que todos queremos, mesmo depois das inúmeras iniciativas preconizadas pelo poder público para reversão dessas tendências negativas? Nosso interesse aqui é discutir essas questões a partir do caso particular da cidade de Curitiba, a qual, apesar de vir se destacando por experiências bem sucedidas de planejamento, segue os padrões brasileiros no que se refere à segregação socioespacial. Entendemos que a discussão das questões urbanas deve ser centrada nos elementos que contribuem para a segregação socioespacial e nas possibilidades e limites das políticas públicas de controle do uso do solo respondendo de forma positiva para a sua superação. A partir do conhecimento da lógica da produção do espaço o trabalho pretende averiguar as possibilidades de integração das políticas urbanas, com o objetivo de promover a melhoria da qualidade ambiental. The nature (of) our urban facts: productions of space and environmental degradation Abstract This work intends to discuss the relation among the process of construction of the urban space, the social-spacial segregation and the environmental degradation. The growing urbanisation of the Brazilian population has led the problems which come from such process – lack of infrastructure, unsuitable densification of areas, environmental degradation, social-space segregation – to centralize the discussion of governmental rulings, technicians and social scientists. So, it’s worthy to ask: why our cities do not have the quality we want, even after several initiatives advocated by the public policies to revert these negative trends? Our interest here is to discuss such questions from the particular case of Curitiba city, the one which, despite of being standing out itself throughout well-succeded experiences of planning, follows the Brazilian patterns related to the social-spacial segregation. We understand that the discussion of urban questions must be focused on the elements which contribute to the social-spacial segregation and on the possibilities and limits of the public policies to answer in a positive way to their overcoming. From the knowledge of the production logic of the space, this work intends to check out the possibilities of integration of the urban policies, with the aim of promoting the increasing of the environmental quality.

Dancing mad! The modernisation of popular dance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Abra
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Good Health ◽  
World War ◽  
Ballroom Dancing ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Active Defence ◽  
One Step ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

This chapter traces the early development of modern ballroom dancing in Britain, from its origins in the ragtime era prior to the First World War through the dance craze that came with the peace. It provides a history for the major dances that would predominate in Britain from the 1920s through the 1950s, particularly the so-called ‘standard four’ – the foxtrot, the modern waltz, the tango, and the one-step. The chapter also examines the social and cultural response to the new dances in Britain – particularly their perceived modernity – which was celebrated by some, but condemned by others. It explores controversies that surrounded popular dance, and the active defence mounted by its proponents, who touted dancing’s value for the cultivation of good health and beauty, among numerous other advantages.

Bodily/material culture and the fighter’s subjectivity

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Warnier
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
First World War ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Experienced Fighter ◽  
First World

In this article, the author contends that the practice of warfare involves fighters’ subjectivity, which can be partly accessed by investigating fighters’ bodily/material culture. If this is the case, one would expect there to be a subjectivity gap between the social scientist, on the one hand, and the experienced fighter, on the other. This problem is discussed with regard to a Cameroon kingdom of the early 20th century and a fighter in the First World War (as analysed by the historians Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker), which enables the author to make significant comparisons.

An emerging art world: The de-subculturalization and artification process of graffiti and pixação in São Paulo

2021 ◽  
pp. 136787792110184
Author(s):  
Ricardo Campos ◽  
Gabriela Leal
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Urban Art ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

Graffiti art and street art have been increasingly described as an artistic movement, with a constant presence in the streets, but also in galleries and museums. In this article we use the term urban art to define this institutionalized category, originating from informal street expressions. In the specific context of the city of São Paulo (Brazil), most of the social actors that make up this art world have backgrounds linked to graffiti and pixação. These two urban subcultures are linked to informal forms of appropriation of the urban space through illicit inscriptions. In this article, we aim, on the one hand, to describe the features and singularities of urban art as an emerging art world and, on the other, to understand how careers are developed in this universe. The empirical data derives from a qualitative research (in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation) developed during the past three years.

scholarly journals Managing Egypt’s Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1800-1952

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-126
Author(s):  
Gregory Starrett
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Religious Festivals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Poor Women

In Egypt and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, the social safety net representedby the extended family branched off in many directions. By Mamluktimes, it encompassed the patronage of wealthy and noble families who distributedfood to the poor on religious festivals and during times of hardship,and who sponsored the construction of bridges, waterworks, and publicfountains. In addition, mosques sometimes housed schools, soup kitchens,and hospitals; merchants regularly fed beggars; Sufi lodges housed travelers;and waqf endowments sponsored various religious and charitable activities.Ruling dynasties, including their women, created funds that sponsoredorphans’ homes, paid the dowries of poor women, and provided pensions forthe widows and children of soldiers killed in battle.As Ener shows in her valuable and carefully researched book, the valuesof ihsan (generosity) and sadaqah (almsgiving) have been applied accordingto ideas about charity’s legitimate beneficiaries (e.g., clerics, the poor,orphans, and women without family support). Ener traces the fortunes of thepoor, the changing constellation of institutions available for their relief, andthe transformation in Egyptian understanding of those entitled to such care.By the middle of the nineteenth century, the traditional “mixed economy”of relief (p. 9), which incorporated countless donors and institutions,operated alongside a more centralized set of interests and practices intendedto control poor people’s movement and activities. Such practices had notbeen common previously (p. 15) and appear to have been unique in theMiddle East (p. 29). Authorities began to distinguish between the deservingand the undesirable poor and sought to prevent able-bodied men fromencroaching on urban space as beggars or “fake” mendicants and from usingpublicly available forms of assistance. In nineteenth-century Cairo andAlexandria, such men and peasants “absconding” from the countrysidewere often arrested, sent back to their home regions, and pressed into involuntaryagricultural, industrial, or military service. The growing modern statewas increasingly interested in controlling crime, immigration, and the flowof disease through internationalized urban spaces ...

scholarly journals Identifying the Perceptual Qualities in a Heritage Precinct - Entrance Gateway of Thiruvasi Village, Tamilnadu

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 2630-2634
Keyword(s):  
Short Duration ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Perceptual Quality ◽  
Social Image ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
Rural Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The One

Heritage is the one need to be appreciated, cherished and preserved. Loss of identity of any place, event, culture or structure without understanding it, results in failure of meaning for settlement. Temple gopuram is the established sign and symbol of an urban space in the regions occupied by Hindu people where ever they settle. It orients people in the known or unknown environment. On a macro level, it acts as gateway, way finder, gives urban identity, adds imageablity, to micro level it directly influences the human actions and feelings. This study sets out to explore, how the perceptual qualities of the gopuram affect person’s memory and perception. The investigation was carried out with questionnaires to the students of number 32, visited the rural space for their case study purpose. The parameters of perceptual qualities were considered as the visual, social and cognitive image. The result shows that the perceptual quality depends on the visual and the cognitive image parameters than the social image. Though the visit is for a short duration of time of one week or for one day, the Rajagopuram structure influence of the observer in a major way and for the inhabitants it adds a symbol of identity to the place.

Virtus, Merkur und Moneten

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Jendorff
Keyword(s):  
Economic Life ◽  
Complex Spectrum ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Feudal Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Modern Era

The nobility of the pre-modern era did not seem to be familiar with the logic and rationalities of economic life. Noble families’ lives were assumed to revolve around luxury, tend towards excessive expenditure and be permanently threatened with ruin. Nevertheless, that is only one side of the complex spectrum of economic activities in which nobles all over Europe were engaged. Their entrepreneurship adapted to economic developments and thus massively influenced economic structures over the centuries. In competition and, of course, in coalition with non-noble participants in diverse markets, European nobles transformed the former feudal society, which led to the emergence of capitalism. This study not only shows the different fields nobles all over Europe were engaged in, but also explains the connection between noble self-fashioning and self-reliance on the one hand, and the ideas and understanding of the social environment and of the position of the individual within it from the 13th to the 19th century on the other. Hence, it also considers why and how the negative perception and evaluation of nobles’ economic activities in parts of Europe developed and what influenced these negative opinions.

Metaphors of the Middle: the Discovery of the Petite Bourgeoisie 1880–1914

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 251-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Crossick
Keyword(s):  
High Rate ◽  
Small Enterprise ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Manufacturing Enterprise ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Petite Bourgeoisie ◽  
The One

AFTER a long period of neglect, during which historians had looked towards the petite bourgeoisie primarily to heap upon it the responsibility for fascism, the last fifteen years has seen a growing research interest in the social and political history of die world of small retail, artisanal and manufacturing enterprise. The result of diis attention has been paradoxical, on the one hand establishing the petite bourgeoisie as a focus for sustained research, while on the other confirming how difficult it is to see the owners of small retail and manufacturing enterprise as a coherent social group or social class. The combination of the owner's labour and capital widiin family-centred enterprises might indicate a distinct position for the petite bourgeoisie within the social structure, but various forces militated against a social or demographic identity for die proprietors of small enterprise: the high rate of business turnover, die limited proportion of petits bourgeois who remain in diat position through their careers, and die low rate of continuity between generations. Although political struggle was important in die formation of any class, one could go further widi respect to die petite bourgeoisie and suggest that it was only at times of political crisis and action, only through die discourse and actions of its organisations, diat a petit-bourgeois identity might emerge. It is not surprising, dierefore, diat research has focused above all on diose years between die 1880s and the First World War, when die emergence of interest groups and increasing political mobilisation seemed to offer evidence of a real petit-bourgeois identity.

scholarly journals Transformaciones en el espacio sociorresidencial de Monterrey, 1990-2000 / Transformations of Socio-Residential Space of Monterrey, 1990-2000

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salomón González Arellano ◽  
Paul Villeneuve
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
Social Space ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Transformations ◽  
Factorial Ecology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Residential Space ◽  
Degree Of Instability

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo caracterizar la estructura residencial del Área Metropolitana de Monterrey (AMM) e identificar las principales transformaciones socio-espaciales que ocurrieron durante la década de los noventa. A partir de la revisión de varios trabajos interesados en el análisis del espacio social de algunas ciudades mexicanas y extranjeras, se aplican los principios de la ecología factorial con dos propósitos fundamentales: 1) identificar las principales dimensiones que estructuran el espacio sociorresidencial del AMM, y 2) caracterizar los cambios en la estructura sociorresidencial en Monterrey para el periodo comprendido entre 1990 y 2000. Los resultados de estos análisis permiten identificar por un lado cierta estabilidad en la manera en que se estructura el espacio sociorresidencial, y por otro lado, observar una creciente diferenciación producto de la polarización de la población inmigrante en el espacio urbano de Monterrey. AbstractThe aim of this article is to characterize the residential structure of the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey (MAM) and to identify the principal socio-spatial transformations that occurred in the 1990s. On the basis of the review of various papers concerning the analysis of the social space of certain Mexican and foreign cities, the principles of factorial ecology are applied for two main purposes: 1) to identify the principal dimensions structuring MAM’s socio-residential space and 2) to characterize the changes in the socio-residential structure of Monterrey for the period between 1990 and 2000. The results of this analysis reveal a degree of instability in the way socio-residential space is structured on the one hand, and a growing differentiation resulting from the polarization of the immigrant population in Monterrey’s urban space on the other.

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