Desire in Abstinence: Negotiating Gender through Fasting among Indian Diaspora Women in the UK

Abstract (English)

This paper highlights Indian diaspora women’s experiences of migration, focusing on fasting practices that can both create and bridge differences. The analysis draws on cases I collected during fieldwork conducted in Leicester, the United Kingdom, in 2021 and 2022.
In Hindi, fasting is referred to as vrat or upavās. In Hindu society, it is customary to perform vrat on various festive occasions with aims such as household prosperity, fulfillment of wishes, and the accumulation of religious merit. These rituals have traditionally been practised as significant religious acts, especially by married women, who are socially positioned as subordinate to men and of lower status.
While previous studies have primarily interpreted fasting as a religious ritual or devotional practice (Caughran 1998; McGee 1991; Wadley 1983), this paper considers it as a food practice—that is, a matter of what and how people eat. This is because Hindu fasting is not simply about ‘not eating,’ but rather about ‘eating carefully,’ or even ‘eating better.’ Accordingly, this paper views fasting as part of everyday lifestyle and pays special attention to the ‘fasting foods’ consumed during the fasting periods. By examining the cases of single women who remain marginalised in India, this paper illustrates how fasting has transformed from a family-centred practice into a self-centred one, as they construct a hybrid lifestyle while struggling with conflicting gender expectations from both Indian and Western cultural norms.