Between Mothers and Daughters: Acts of Care and the Reclamation of Self in Geetanjali Shree’s Fiction
Keywords:
older mother, adult daughter, caregiving, maternal thinking, relational dynamicAbstract
This study will explore the multifaceted nature of caregiving, with a particular focus on the intergenerational exchange between mothers and daughters in Indian families. Caregiving is often understood as unpaid labour; however, it is actually a much more nuanced relational endeavour influenced by diverse factors in which it is situated, which may be emotional, cultural, and economic (Breier 2021). In these families, daughters are often seen as primary caregivers, a role that is reinforced by social norms and beliefs about intergenerational filial duty. Caregiving varies greatly among families, influenced by factors such as financial independence and dependency norms, often creating an unequal burden for women. This paper grapples with these issues by exploring Geetanjali Shree’s Mai (2017) and Tomb of Sand(2018), honouring the lived experiences of adult daughters who engage in the multifaceted and complex realities of caregiving. The narratives also reveal the complexity of caring for their mothers, particularly in relation to the mother’s struggle to reclaim her identity, which has been largely obscured by the normative role of caregiving.
Downloads
References
Abraham, Nicolas, and Maria Torok. The Shell and the Kernel: Renewals of Psychoanalysis. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Baber, Kristine M., and Katherine R. Allen. Women and Families: Feminist Reconstructions. Guilford Publications, 1992.
Bion, Wilfred R. Learning from Experience. Basic Books, 1962.
Blum, Alan, and Stuart J. Murray. The Ethics of Care: Moral Knowledge, Communication, and the Art of Caregiving. Routledge, 2012.
Bohleber, Wolfgang. “Projective Identification and the Dynamics of Transference: A Contribution to Understanding the Therapeutic Process.” Psychoanalytic Psychology, vol. 24, no. 3, 2007, pp. 469–84.
Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, 2004.
Chakravarti, Uma. “Gender, Caste and Labour: Ideological and Material Structure of Widowhood.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 30, no. 36, 1995, pp. 2248–2256.
Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. University of California Press, 1978.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, 2000.
Dey, Debashrita, and Priyanka Tripathi. “Ageing Identities and Narratives of Loss: (Re)Contextualising Cognitive Degeneration in ‘Reel’ Space and ‘Real’ Lives.” Jindal Global Law Review, vol. 13, 2022, pp. 329–46.
—. “‘Robbed out of Mind’: Reflections on Alzheimer’s and Gendered Subjectivity in Select Indian Literary Narrative.” Journal of Aging Studies, vol. 68, 2024, pp. 1–7.
—. “Ageing, Alzheimer’s, and Precarity: Comprehending Vulnerabilities and Care Approaches in Select Indian Literary Fictions.” SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English, vol. 61, 2024, pp. 49–79.
Gangopadhyay, Jhuma. “Daughters as Later-Life Caregivers: A Cultural Shift in Later-Life Care in India.” Caregiving in India Blog, 10 Jan. 2024.
Grotstein, James S. “On Projective Identification.” Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 88, 2007, pp. 1289–91.
Grotstein, James S., Elizabeth B. Spillius, and Edna O’Shaughnessy. “Projective Identification: A Communication Process in Psychoanalysis.” The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. 92, no. 6, 2011, pp. 1345–60.
Gupta, Richa, and Pooja Sharma. “Caregiving Experiences of Family Members of Persons with Dementia: A Qualitative Study from India.” Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 57, no. 4, 2015, pp. 345–50.
Harris, Angela, and Michael Harris. “Liberating Processes from Projective Identification in a Mother-Daughter Relationship: A Case Study.” Journal of Family Therapy, vol. 42, no. 1, 2020, pp. 45–62.
Kittay, Eva Feder. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. Routledge, 1999.
Kumar, Anil, and Sunita Rani. “Exploring the Positive Aspects of Caregiving Among Family Caregivers in India.” Journal of Family Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, 2023, pp. 123–35.
Lloyd, Sally A., April L. Few, and Katherine R. Allen, editors. Handbook of Feminist Family Studies. Sage, 2009.
Nair, Asha, and Kalpana Rao. “Family Caregiving for Older Adults: Gendered Roles and Responsibilities in India.” Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, 2017, pp. 421–34.
NITI Aayog. Senior Care Reforms in India: Reimagining the Senior Care Paradigm: A Position Paper. Government of India, 2024.
Noddings, Nel. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. University of California Press, 1984.
Patterson, Sarah E., and Rachel Margolis. “The Demography of Multigenerational Caregiving: A Critical Aspect of the Gendered Life Course.” Socius, vol. 5, 2019, pp. 1–12.
Raja, Ira. Security, Socialisation and Affect in Indian Families: Unfamiliar Ground. Routledge, 2014.
—. “Rethinking Relationality in the Context of Adult Mother–Daughter Caregiving in Indian Fiction.” Journal of Aging, Humanities, and the Arts, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 25–37.
Robinson, Fiona. The Ethics of Care: A Feminist Approach to Human Security. Temple University Press, 2011.
Ruddick, Sara. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Beacon Press, 1989.
Seligman, Jill. “Understanding Projective Identification in Parent-Child Relationships: A Clinical Perspective.” Journal of Child Psychotherapy, vol. 44, no. 2, 2018, pp. 123–38.
Shirai, Y., S. S. Koerner, and S. Xu. “Family Caregiver Experience of Resistance to Care: Occurrence Patterns, Context, and Impact on Caregiver.” Qualitative Health Research, vol. 31, no. 14, 2021, pp. 2653–65.
Shree, Geetanjali. Tomb of Sand. Translated by Daisy Rockwell, Penguin Random House India, 2018.
—. Mai: Silently Mother. Translated by Nita Kumar, Niyogi Books, 2017.
Singh, T., and R. Verma. “Caregiving for Elderly Parents: A Study from the Indian Perspective.” Asian Journal of Social Science Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–10.
Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari. Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture, and Postcolonialism. Routledge, 1993.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Debashrita Dey, Priyanka Tripathi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyrights of all materials published in SARE are retained by the authors. Authors may republish their work or grant others permission to republish it. We would be grateful if republication is accompanied by an acknowledgment that the work was originally published in SARE.
