Parental Gatekeeping in Diasporic familes

1. By:
Nupur (A-17)
Trishala (A-20)
Saugata (C-55)
Sidhant (A-51)

3. •To examine the inter-relationships between culture, gender and consumption
within the context of diasporic Indian families living in Britain.
• Diasporic families have become prominent because of films like “Bend it like
Beckham” and “Bhaji on the Beach” and programmes like “The Kumar's”;
“Goodness, Gracious Me”
• The research not only focus on how consumption is used to negotiate cultural
boundaries within the families but also examines differing gate-keeping roles in
resisting or promoting the negotiation of cultural boundaries .
• The research studies the following aspects:
1. changing pattern(s) of power, identity and gender roles in ethnic families
2. address the gap on gender roles within the family.
3. examine the family as part of a social system
4. examine “the factors which make a family’s interpersonal relations
culturally embedded”
5. examine the family unit at a more disaggregate level
The research is drawn from the family stories as told and experienced by
daughters . Thompson’s criteria of gender construction (i.e. socio-historical
contexts, cultural and structural contexts, valued personal outcomes and daily
interaction processes) to structure our review of family and gender issues,

4. Socio-Historical Contexts
• The 2001 census indicated that over a million people of Indian descent live in Britain,
representing one of its largest diasporic groups.
• Diasporic communities is a constant renegotiating between past and present, modernity and
traditions , self and others , and differing cultural values .
• This process of renegotiation may be moderated through “communities and networks”
Family, Cultural and Structural Contexts
• The family represents an important site where culture, consumption and gender intersect.
•The social constructionist approach is followed where “gender is understood as the product
of social processes and as embodying cultural meanings of masculinity and femininity”

5. • Gender is not neatly equated with his or her sex.
Rather “men and women not only vary in their degree
of masculinity and femininity but have to be constantly
persuaded or reminded to be masculine or feminine.
• Men and women have to “do” gender rather than “be”
a gender” , most significantly via social interactions e.g.
voices, bodies, dress and consumption (such as food
and alcohol)
• Culture represents an evolving and ongoing set of
norms and values, where acculturation is characterised
by conflict, creativity, democratisation, disagreement,
innovation, internal or external industrialisation and
modernisation.

6. • Understanding of the family is located within the
structuralist theme, notably within social networks
where the community represents the societal
structure which supports and maintains the family.
• Diasporic families are dynamic, evolving and
adapting to their surroundings over time. We view
the family as a collection of interacting sub-systems
(dyads, triads) that affect each other,
whilst being influenced by world views such as
culture .
• Children are socialized into collectivist cultural
values of co-operation, duty, favouritism,
interdependence, nurturing, obedience and
reliability. Loyalty to the family is regarded as
dharma, i.e. sacred duty with the need to enhance
family status representing “one of the most
important goals which [British] South Asian families

7. Valued Personal Outcomes and Daily Interactions
• British Indian families interact with differing cultures on a daily basis. These
interactions led to situations when cultural understandings and gender roles are
challenged, negotiated and restructured .
• Family gate-keeping is a “collection of beliefs and behaviours that ultimately
inhibit a collaborative effort between men and women in family work by limiting
men’s opportunities for learning and growing through caring for home and
children”.
Consumption, Family and Gender
• Consumption sits at the intersection of culture and gender in family life. The
relationship between consumption and gender is strongly linked to cultural systems
• Consumption has been gendered…women have been seen as consumers and
consumption as a feminine activity, while men have been seen as producer
.

8.  To understand how consumption is used
within diasporic families to negotiate cultural
boundaries.
 To identify the differing roles of family
members in resisting or promoting negotiation
of cultural boundaries.
 To show how these roles are gendered.
 To examine the different gendered roles
played by mothers and fathers as cultural
gate-keepers

9.  The ethno-consumerist
framework is based on
three assumptions.
 That behaviour is
grounded in culture.
 That cultural categories
are dependent upon both
historical and socio-cultural
forces as well as
current practices.
 That culture is constantly
changing and, therefore,
so are categories of

10.  Sixteen British born young adult Indian
women were recruited.
 We interviewed young women who identified
themselves as daughters and the embodiment
of their family’s cultural values.
 Participants were interviewed over a period of
thirteen months on two separate occasions.

11.  The first interview concentrated on
understanding the underlying issues of family
life for Indian women living in Britain.
 The second set of interviews followed up the
emergent themes like
1. issues of gender and power
2. community and gossip networks
3. conflicting parental attitudes towards
retention of Indian cultural values.

12.  It depicted the central role of parents as the
primary gate-keepers in the processes of
resisting or promoting negotiation of cultural
boundaries.
 For all these women their grandparents
reflected their own cultural identity.
 Grandparents feared that their grandchildren
might lose their Indian cultural values.

13.  From their parents’ generation, it was their
fathers’ immigration stories which were
predominant.
 These stories about their fathers were often
subtly mingled with stories of racism and
difficulties.
 Outcome of their fathers’ immigration
experiences - a desire to achieve in order to
fulfil their fathers’ expectations.
 Most of these women spoke English at home -
rarely used their own ethnic language.
 Fathers advocated this – Mothers preferred

14.  Stories of daily life included descriptions of a
variety of struggles linked to cultural identity,
power and gender.
 In contrast to their fathers, mothers took a
strong stance against cultural adaptation.
 Mothers instilled Indian cultural values into
their children.
 Fathers predominantly encouraged watching
English language media.
 Mothers appeared to deliberately enforce
using Indian language media, whether that
was radio, television or the cinema

17.  Communities and networks are central to the
process of cultural (re)negotiation (Appadurai
1990) which confronts immigrant families.
 The issue of family reputation is important to all
our families but parents took different views on
how to maintain and enhance it.
 According to fathers , reputation meant success
by their children.
 Mothers’ strong believed in maintaining the
family reputation by ensuring that the Indian
community only spoke positively about their
family.

18.  Sons are given the highest value in Indian
Culture whereas daughters are not.
 Brothers often directly challenged parental
decisions that affected their female siblings.
 Brothers acted as cultural enablers, providing
their sisters with freedom to express their
identities.

19. Family’s relationships within their own cultural
world highlighted the crucial role of inter
generational and intra-generational gate-keeping,
and particularly the different stances of
mothers and fathers towards the
resistance or promotion, respectively, of cultural
negotiation.

21.  One of the central mechanisms which women
use to create family life is the organising and
provision of food
 Secondly food was used to maintain,
perpetuate and reinforce family networks.
 The production and consumption of food in
families also illustrates different gender and
socialization processes.
 The ability of our participants to cook Indian
foods produced the only notable behavioural
differences in terms of religious categories.

22.  Alcohol was a way that fathers sought to
counter balance their wives’ cultural influence
and power.
 Fathers encourage their children in the
moderate consumption of alcohol, as a direct
challenge to their mothers
 Fathers’ encouragement of alcohol
consumption directly challenged Indian
cultural values and indirectly matriarchical
power within the family.

23.  Clothing often proved to be another contentious
issue between parents, and between mothers
and daughters.
 Mothers were central in influencing their
daughters’ views of what might be deemed to be
“suitable clothing”
 Daughters often resisted their mothers’ attempt
to control their clothing.
 Clothes purchased reflected fashion tastes,
representing collusion between mother and
daughter
 It also helped observe mothers and daughters
purchasing and sharing of brand information.

24. In terms of high involvement or conspicuously
consumed products (Mason 1981, 1998) our
participants and their siblings acknowledged their direct
involvement, for instance when buying capital intensive
products, such as electrical goods or cars, where brand
imagery is important.
Fathers regularly made the final purchase decision,
but their daughters’ narratives showed the central
role of mothers in the decision making process.

25.  T
The study provides opportunity to understand the dynamics
of power, identity and gender in several instances.
 For eg. The father emphasized on his struggle, hardwork
and other masculine duties combined with the need to adopt
with British society
 In contrast mothers role is to transmit culturally appropriate
values in their daughters.
 Power conflicts (e.g. language; media; consumption) in the
family between mothers and fathers; and between parents
and children.

26. The influence of the father over
widening their daughters
horizons beyond the traditional
world (eg education and
professional work)
High Role of social influences in
consumer decision making
Marketing Implications
Products and services which
promote enhanced access to
wider opportunities.
Marketing Implications
Marketing positioning strategies
could be developed in a better
way of symbolic products and
services by marketers

27. Mothers were expected to pass their
cultural values(food, clothing, life
experiences) to their
daughters(future mothers)
Marketing Implications
Mothers’ stories as protectors
of cultural values could be
linked to campaigns. (e.g.
promoting family life via
preparation of meals).
Sons as bridges for their sister in
various consumption activities
and father son collaboration to
break some culturally embedded
rules of society for their daughter.
Marketing Implications
Advertisement featuring brother
sister bonds or Protective family
to market product and services

28. Information exclusively from university students was used. Ultimately
limiting results to similar Indian families living in Britain, who are
prepared to support female higher education.
Secondly, small group of respondents is another limitation. There is huge scope
for widening the range of Participants in terms of social class, socio-economic
standing, education,ethinicity, geographical origin and religion.
This case only involved talking to daughters and did not capture
the independent voices of all the family members
Finally, family lives are not static and continue to adapt, grow and
change over time.