Oral Democracy and Women’s Oratory Competency in Indian Village Assemblies : A Qualitative Analysis
In democracies, innovative political institutions have opened up scope for direct public participation often in the form of talk: citizens talking to the state and mutual talk among citizens on matters concerning community development. A prominent...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/09/25071172/oral-democracy-women’s-oratory-competency-indian-village-assemblies-qualitative-analysis http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22652 |
| Summary: | In democracies, innovative political
institutions have opened up scope for direct public
participation often in the form of talk: citizens talking to
the state and mutual talk among citizens on matters
concerning community development. A prominent example is the
Indian gram sabha, or village assembly, which occurs in a
highly stratified context. This paper undertakes a
talk-centered analysis of the gram sabha with a focus on
examining the oral participation of women in general and
women affiliated with microcredit self-help groups who have
access to an associational life. The qualitative analysis of
255 gram sabha transcripts from four South Indian states
finds that women associated with microcredit self-help
groups employ a wider variety of narrative styles and
utilize a more multilayered structure to convey their
messages compared with all women taken together. Thus, the
difference is not so much in the numerical instances of
talking or in the types of issues raised, but rather in the
quality of participation. The paper makes an important
theoretical contribution by proposing the concept of oral
democracy as an alternative to deliberative democracy, and
urges an analytical focus on the oral or oratory competency
of subordinated groups as they participate in these
important institutions. |
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