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Growing Up Gay in Urban India

A Critical Psychosocial Perspective

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ketki Ranade

    1. Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India

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  • Provides a glimpse into the psychic worlds of gay and lesbian children and youth and their negotiations with a heterosexually constructed world around them
  • Uncovers heterosexist and heteronormative biases in human development perspectives and youth and childhood studies
  • Serves as a guide for mental health and child development professionals and trainees, and for parents, teachers and queer persons themselves

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Growing Up Gay: Interrogating Disciplinary Frames

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 1-37

  3. Researching Same-Sex Sexuality

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 39-58

  4. Exploring Early Years: Childhood and Adolescence of Young Gay and Lesbian Persons

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 59-96

  5. Exploring Identity Development and the Symbolic Meaning/s of ‘Coming Out’ in the Process of Identity Work

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 97-116

  6. Living Life as a Queer Person: Role of Intimate Relationships in Consolidation of Identity

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 117-139

  7. Living Life as a Queer Person: Role of Queer Community/s in Consolidation of Identity

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 141-160

  8. Concluding Remarks

    • Ketki Ranade
    Pages 161-169
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the growing up experiences of gay and lesbian individuals within their homes, schools, neighbourhoods, among friends; and their journeys of finding themselves and their communities while living in a heterosexually constructed society. It is based on an exploratory, qualitative study with young gay and lesbian persons in two cities of Maharashtra, India and employs a life course perspective. The author has written this book from two primary loci: those of a mental health professional and activist, and a queer feminist activist. Through layered narratives and psychosocial analyses of experiences that are simultaneously attentive to subjectivities and to social and interpersonal processes, the author provides insights into the lives of children who grow up feeling ‘different’ from their siblings, peers and friends, and receive constant messages about correct ways of being and expression from their parents, teachers, friends and counsellors/doctors;  the unique challenges to growing up as gay or lesbian, alongside complex processes involved in the decision of ‘coming out’; and the experience of meeting others like oneself, forming intimate, romantic relationships, bonds of friendship, political solidarity, families of choice and so on. In this book, the author employs a critical stance towards mainstream life span development studies, developmental psychology, child development and childhood studies that make universal assumptions of heteronormativity and gender binarism. This book is of interest to a wide readership, from psychologists, mental health and human rights scholars, to scholars of youth and childhood studies, gender studies, cultural studies, social work, sociology and anthropology. 

Reviews

“Dr Ranade’s aim in writing this book was to start necessary and much required conversations amongst health and social care disciplines in India. The tone and style of writing lends itself to this aim. …  All in all I would recommend this book as a must read for anyone who harbours a genuine desire to understand the experience of another, be it a parent, sibling, child, friend, colleague or even a stranger.” (Madhu Kewalramani, In Plainspeak, tarshi.net, August 14, 2019)

“Ranade’s work, fills a gap in the literature to understand the unique experiences of growing up gay in urban India. Thiswork is a call to mental health professionals, activists, LGBTQ people and their allies to consider the unique stressors and influences that LGBTQ minority people face in early life stage development in Indian society and how alternative models must be developed for LGBTQ people in other parts of the world.” (Naveen Jonathan, The Indian Journal of Social Work, Vol. 80 (2), April, 2019)



Authors and Affiliations

  • Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India

    Ketki Ranade

About the author

Ketki Ranade, PhD., is currently Assistant Professor at the Center for Health and Mental Health, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Ketki has worked for over a decade as a mental health service provider, trainer, researcher and activist and has developed mental health service programs in low income urban settlements and institutions in Pune, Maharashtra. Ketki has conducted research and published in areas such as medicalisation of homosexuality, gay affirmative counselling, familial responses to gay and lesbian family members, sexual rights of persons with psychosocial disability. Their areas of teaching include mental health policy, legislations and advocacy, clinical social work, interdisciplinary perspectives in mental health and qualitative research methodology. They have been a research fellow under the Health and Population Innovations Fellowship Programme (2006-09), Population Council, India. They were a member of the Expert Committee on Transgender Issues formed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India in 2013. Ketki is also member of LABIA, a queer feminist LBT collective in Bombay. Ketki uses the gender pronoun 'they'.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Growing Up Gay in Urban India

  • Book Subtitle: A Critical Psychosocial Perspective

  • Authors: Ketki Ranade

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8366-2

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-10-8365-5Published: 24 May 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4133-5Published: 25 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-10-8366-2Published: 09 May 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 169

  • Topics: Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Culture and Gender

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