This project supports two cultural anthropologists and a Nepalese colleague in a study of how women in Nepal criticize their subjugated position in society through the medium of songs sung at a traditional festival. Major socio-cultural changes are occurring now in Nepal and the project will study the production of novel songs of critical social commentary as they are sung at the festival. Methods include participant observation, extensive interviews of women and of men, and examination of printed songbooks. The research focus is to understand the micro-process by which gender relations in a patriarchal society are changing. This research is important because patriarchal social systems exist in most traditional societies, and are faced with severe pressures for more egalitarian social relationships (e.g., the recent complaint of middle-class Kuwaiti women about their inability to legally drive their families out of war danger due to the Muslim prohibition on woman drivers). Understanding how gender relations are protested in traditional discourse in one case will help us understand the general processes of social change in gender relations in traditional societies.
