PROYECTO DEL BUQUE

The mass media has a primary role in introducing Nepal is to ‘cultural globalisation’ with international media along with Indian media strongly influencing local urban media.

In this regard, Mark Liechty asserts that it is important to analyse media effects of globalisation in Nepal. One part of Liechty (1995) studied the effect of Western pornographic media consumption on women living in Kathmandu. Though this study was neither based on feminist qualitative study nor on media culture, it is significant for understanding urban Nepali women’s experiences of modernity in consuming media. He states that women relegate sexual pornography to the category of foreign images and by doing so they detach themselves from it to maintain their sense as respectable Nepali women. On one hand, they consider themselves modern via watching foreign media; while on the other hand, it was not something they could identify with. Liechty’s argument seem applicable to my research since I observed that urban Nepali women, especially middle aged older women faced significant challenges in being respectable Nepali women as they negotiate their experience of new forms of sexuality which they encountered in modern media. However, I argue

that ijjat which can be defined as dignified/respectable carries a significant meaning

for urban women in Nepal, especially older women who seem to have embraced this notion in their day to day lives.

Nevertheless, in arguing further about who is respectable in urban society of Nepal, Liechty presents a homogeneous concept of the dignified Nepali woman. Here, I argue that in contemporary urban Nepali society, a new elitism in form of high caste values still exists within the women processing modernity in urban spaces of Nepal. These high caste values symbolize modernity for many urban women of other castes who belong not only to non-high caste social groups but also those who come to Kathmandu from other places.

In this context, I also integrate arguments made by scholars to understand how the interplay of ideas of nationality and modernity aid in comprehending subjectivities of urban women of Nepal. I examine how global narratives in the form of Indian visual media content and local cultural narratives in forms of ijjat interplay to shape

women’s subjective identities in urban Nepali society. Moreover, in the recent times, Indian films and TV serials project narratives that challenge stereotypes of gender roles and positions.

Under such situations, I examine the (re)negotiation of agency of urban Nepali women vis-à-vis the ‘local’ and ‘foreign’ from viewing current Indian visual media. This situation also pose a significant question for my research focus as whether the Indian media's influence on Nepali gender roles and relations can be defined as South-South globalisation or as the Western influence that is mediated by India and Indian visual media.

Indian visual media have dominated urban Nepali media for a long time, likewise, my interviewees also find Indian visual media a starting point for discussion of their gender roles, and intimate relationships and has become a common discourse of discussing their ideas. It would be worthwhile to contemplate whether urban Nepali watching Indian visual media is the regional, economic and cultural power dominance India has over Nepal, and it opens another fruitful area for research and analysis. However, my study is limited to my debates on cultural compatibility that both nation share. The success of Indian visual media in Nepal is not only because of the geographical closeness but is also associated with cultural compatibility between the

two nations. Culpan (2002) argues that cultural compatibility is closely connected to cultural proximity which means closeness to the cultural practices of one organization to another one. Likewise, the influence of the Indian visual media in the Nepali context, especially urban media is its cultural values and affinities with India. Cultural proximity is in part the preference of audiences for media in their own language, values, and way of life and culture, ultimately leading the audiences to prefer local and national productions over those that are globalized (Straubhaar 2008). Hence, I argue that urban Nepali women watching Indian visual media foregrounds cultural proximity theory that shares cultural similarities including gestures, rituals and language.

Indian serials or soap operas which are very popular amongst middle and elderly urban Nepali women, are based on the ideals of a typical large, extended family, which are written in very melodramatic forms typically about middle class, joint families modern yet deeply rooted in the Hindu cultural contexts. This resonates easily with Nepali female audiences. The women in these melodramas are well educated but remain very true to their ‘Indian’ values or ‘Hindu norms’, while integrating tradition and modernity. Allen (1995) asserts that there is a strong symbiotic relationship between soap operas and melodrama and aspirations to audience satisfaction where on the one hand melodrama may to break the taboos within the genre of soap opera while on the other hand, they embed unrealistic melodrama that to increase the plot combinations. Further Zettl states that contextualism may have many shifts and different meanings but art is one feature what is being evaluated within its context. She argues that all “...events or incidents of life are understood within their cultural contexts; contextualizing aesthetics means that what and how we perceive any event is greatly influenced by its context.” (2005,5). Following the above argument, I examined the nuances in which urban Nepali women consider in Indian visual media as a common cultural context in discussing gender roles, intimate relationships and their ‘culture’.