Parent-child negotiations in the shadow of compulsory marriage

Abstract

In this paper I would like to look at parent child negotiations, adjustments or conflicts in the context of a daughter or son’s marriage.  As the panel’s concept note states,  dichotomous characterizations of the young  as shaped by globalization and technology and parents as defenders of ‘tradition’ are hardly accurate and not very useful.  Picking up on the idea of how elders ‘construct, participate, and innovate in globalizing contexts as a way of understanding global modernity’, I turn to exploring parent child relationships and negotiations in the context of spouse selection and the decision to get married. Can the huge heterogeneity of context and negotiations tell us something about this shifting terrain?