Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India

Raka Ray’s book is about the political and cultural contexts under which women organize to form
movements to stand for their rights and dignity. Ray compares women activists and women’s movements
in two of India’s metropolitan cities, Bombay and Calcutta. Her analysis is rooted in the concept of
political fields which she uses instead of political opportunity structure approach. This is to give due
recognition to the crucial role of cultural factors and the relational nature of action. A field, according
to Ray, ‘can be thought of as a structured, unequal and socially constructed environment within which
organisations are embedded and to which organisations and activists constantly respond’ (pp. 6). She
writes that fields may vary with respect to two analytically distinct factors. One is distribution of power
(pattern of concentration or dispersal of forces within the field) and the other being political culture
(acceptable and legitimate ways of doing politics in a given field).