Research Papers of Professor Pat Caplan: Madras Fieldwork on Women's Organisations in India

Research papers, primarily accumulated 1974-1988, of anthropologist Professor Pat Caplan, relating to fieldwork on women’s organisations in Madras [Chennai], Tamil Nadu (India). Topics researched by Caplan during her fieldwork in India included social welfare and philanthropy, class and gender relations, as well as ageing and food consumption.

Comprises:

Field research materials and notes, primarily accumulated 1974-1975, of Professor Pat Caplan relating to the Social Science Research Council funded research project 'A Study of Selected Women's Organisations in Madras City' (1974-1975). Comprises published and unpublished research material compiled on various women’s organisations in Madras [Chennai], India, including: Madras Mylapore Ladies Circle club; Altrusa International Inc. Madras Branch; Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam; Monday (Charity) Club; Mangayarkarasi Mahalir Manram; and other women’s, men’s and mixed gender groups [ref: PP MS 104/01]

Field research materials and notes, primarily accumulated 1981-1982, of Caplan relating to the Social Science Research Council and Nuffield Foundation funded research 'A Study of Women and their Organisations in a South Indian City' (1981-1982), a follow up to Caplan's previous research conducted in Madras [Chennai], India during 1974-75. Comprises published and unpublished research material compiled on various Madras women’s organisations, including: Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam, Monday (Charity) Club and Vishranthi Home for the Aged Destitute Women; as well as the Tamil Nadu Social Welfare Board and Central Social Welfare Board [ref: PP MS 104/02].

Field research materials and notes, primarily accumulated 1981-1982 and 1987-1988, of Caplan relating to the Nuffield Foundation funded research on 'New Kinds of Women's Organisations' (1981-1982 and 1987-1988). Comprises published and unpublished research material compiled on feminist and radical Indian women's groups in India, particularly Madras [Chennai], including: Pennurimai Iyakkam; All India Democratic Women's Association of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Tamil Nadu Joint Action Council for Women (JACW); and Working Women's Forum [ref: PP MS 104/03].

Published research outputs by Caplan relating to women in India (1977-1994); as well as bibliographies on women in India assembled by Caplan [ref: PP MS 104/04]

Ann Patricia Caplan (née Bailey) began her academic career studying for a BA in African Studies (Swahili Branch) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London between 1960 and 1963. This was followed by an MA in Social Anthropology in 1965 and a PhD in 1968 based on fieldwork carried out in Tanzania.

While studying at SOAS, Pat Bailey met Lionel Caplan, a Canadian postgraduate, and they were married in 1967. At the end of 1968 Pat and Lionel Caplan travelled to the Far Western Hills of Nepal to begin a project which formed part of a programme entitled 'Social Change in Nepal', directed by Professor Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf who was the head of the Anthropology Department at SOAS. This project, funded by the Social Science Research Council of Great Britain, was associated with the London-Cornell Himalayan Research Project and included fieldwork conducted by Nicholas Thomas (on Thulung Rai), Barbara Nimri Aziz (on two Buddhist populations) and Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf (on Sherpas of Khumbu) from SOAS, as well as Alan MacFarlane (on Gurungs) and Lionel Caplan (on Dailekh Bazaar) from London-Cornell. This was the second of a number of trips Lionel Caplan was to make to Nepal, but the first and only fieldwork Pat Caplan carried out there.

Lionel Caplan's research was based in Dailekh Bazaar, while Pat Caplan was based in Bhurti Village, part of the Khursanibari Panchayat in Dailekh District. Bhurti Village was a mixed caste Hindu village with approximately equal populations of high castes, such as Upadhyas and Jaisis, and untouchable castes, including Sarkis and Damais, lying at 4,500 feet. The project ran from January to December 1969, with a three month interruption from June to September as a result of Lionel Caplan being taken ill and requiring a spell in Kathmandu.

With the help of two Nepalese research assistants and interpreters (Hari Prasad Koirala and Kagendra Malla), Pat Caplan investigated inter-caste relations, land tenure, migration to India by low castes and new sources of cash income.

Pat Caplan also undertook a number of field research visits to Madras [Chennai] (India) to study women's organisations in the city. Firstly, as a Social Science Research Council Research Fellow based at SOAS (1974-76), investigating topics such as social welfare and philanthropy, and the culture of class and class relations. Caplan was assisted in her 1974-75 fieldwork by the research assistant and translator Sushila Krishnaswamy. Women's organisations studied intensively by Caplan during this period included the Madras Mylapore Ladies Circle club, Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam; Monday (Charity) Club, and Mangayarkarasi Mahalir Manram. Caplan returned to the city during 1981-82, funded by the SSRC and Nuffield Foundation, to continue research into these organisations and also to investigate feminist and radical women's groups, which led to the publication of the book Class and Gender in India: Women and their Organisations in a South Indian City (1985). Caplan made further fieldwork trips to Madras in subsequent years (1987, 1991, 1996, 1998, 2011) focussing particularly on the issues of ageing and changing food consumption, as well as contacting existing research informants and updating on their life-cycles.

Pat Caplan also carried out fieldwork on Mafia Island, Tanzania (1965-1967, 1976, 1984, 1994, 2002, 2004 and 2010). She also directed a large project on food and health in London and West Wales in the 1990s.

Pat Caplan was appointed to a lectureship in Anthropology at Goldsmiths University of London in 1976, where she was one of the founding members of the Anthropology Department. She retired as a Professor at Goldsmiths in 2003 but subsequently remained active as an anthropologist.

Her main publications include: Priests and Cobblers (1972), Choice and Constraint in a Swahili Community: Property, Hierarchy and Cognatic Descent on the East African Coast (1975), Women United, Women Divided: Cross-cultural perspectives on Female Solidarity (1978), Class and Gender in India: Women and their Organisations in a South Indian City (1985), The Cultural Construction of Sexuality (1987), Gendered Fields: Women, Men and Ethnography (1993), African Voices, African Lives: Personal Narratives from a Swahili Village (1997), Food, Health and Identity (1997), Risk Revisited (2000), The Ethics of Anthropology: Debates and Dilemmas (2003), Swahili Modernities: Identity, Power and Development on the East African Coast (2004).

The papers have been arranged as follows:

PP MS 104/01: A Study of Selected Women's Organisations in Madras City field research

PP MS 104/02: A Study of Women and their Organisations in a South Indian City field research

PP MS 104/03: New Kinds of Women's Organisations field research

PP MS 104/04: Publications

Open

Donated by Professor Patricia Caplan in 2014

Catalogued

Not expected

Research papers of Professor Pat Caplan relating to Social Change in Nepal. Papers, 1969-1980, of anthropologist Pat Caplan relating to her fieldwork on inter-caste relations, land tenure, migration to India by low castes and new sources of cash income in the Far Western Hills of Nepal in 1969, as well as material relating to the subsequent publication of books and articles based on the fieldwork. 2 boxes [MS 381062, SOAS Library]

Interview of Professor Pat Caplan by Paul Thompson. National Life Stories: Pioneers of Social Research,1996-2018. British Library Sound Archives, 2009 [Collection ID (SN): 6226]