The Gravity of Hope

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay

Feb 2024 · Doshor Publication

About this ebook

The Gravity of Hope is a non-fictional account of women’s lives who sometimes endured, often resisted and ultimately coped with marital violence as best as they could in an informal settlement in northeastern Mumbai. It uses anthropological methods and two decades of research-driven insights to analyse the role of gender, marriage, structural violence, family, informal and legal institutions in tackling wife abuse in India. In conclusion, there are many reasons why domestic violence in India continues unabated; the most important is the social norm that views marriage as the primary, and often the only, path to securing women’s financial futures.

About the author

Sreeparna Chattopadhyay is a social scientist with an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Brown University, USA in the interdisciplinary program in demography and anthropology. She has a B.A. (Hons.) in economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Her past and current research concerns three interlinked themes – gendered violence such as domestic and sexual violence; unmasking intersectional inequities including those emanating from health systems; and analyses of reproduction using a reproductive justice lens. She has worked in academia, government, and nonprofits in the USA, UK, and India. Her research has been published by prestigious international and national journals and has been covered by international and national press.