Papers by Hema Ganapathy-Coleman
The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health, 2025
In India, marriages across the lines of religion and caste, and to a lesser extent, social class ... more In India, marriages across the lines of religion and caste, and to a lesser extent, social class are considered to be intermarriages. Despite India’s long history of intermarriages, and the existence of the Special Marriage Act, which validates and registers interreligious and inter-caste marriages, intermarriages are relatively uncommon. These marriages face daunting familial and social obstacles because in India, marriage is viewed as a union of families and lineages. Typically, marriages are endogamous, and intermarriages disrupt societal norms, often leading to family disapproval, social condemnation, and even violence. Intermarriages also reflect geopolitical struggles, with love and marriage seen as threats to national and community stability. Women, who are central to this type of patriotic and territorial project, face innumerable constraints to ensure sexual respectability and reputation protection. Data about the consequences of intermarriage on mental health are nonexistent. But we know that even in normal circumstances, Indian women are already likelier than men to suffer from depressive and anxiety disorders and experience various forms of violence, with few seeking mental health care due to stigma. These challenges are intensified in intermarriages, which do not have the approval of society. Yet, intermarrying couples embody the ideals of inclusion and acceptance.
Forthcoming. In R. Moodley, K. Kenney & S. Raghunandan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health.
Social Identities. Journal of Race, Nation and Culture, 2024
This paper analyzes interviews with 25 immigrant Indian women in the USA, most of whom arrived du... more This paper analyzes interviews with 25 immigrant Indian women in the USA, most of whom arrived during the 1980s. Combining data from in-depth interviews of eight of these women from a cultural psychological study and interviews of 17 immigrant Indian women from the Indiana University Oral History Research Center, I use qualitative analysis within the grounded theory approach to offer insights into their lives in the USA. Six themes emerged from their narratives: the move to the USA (‘the shift’) and their feeling of displacement; experiences with religious and racial discrimination; their roles as cultural and national ambassadors for India; employment; marriage; and identity dilemmas. Adding to the literature that eschews hegemonic Western analytical categories to actively consider the perspectives of the participants themselves, I render a nuanced portrayal of the women’s experiences as they actively synthesize a new ‘authentic’ Indianness for themselves and their families while navigating the melancholia of loss, separation, and exclusion.
Women's Evolving Lives, 2017
It is one thing to use the label "the Indian woman," and quite another to attribute a static set ... more It is one thing to use the label "the Indian woman," and quite another to attribute a static set of adjectives to her erased of all specificity, removed from interactional order, and decontextualized. After all, Indian women are a multireligious, multi-caste, multilingual group with varied income levels and a wide variety of regional, familial, and professional identities, educational backgrounds, and developmental trajectories. The asymmetries, hierarchies, and other influences that govern their complicated lives are also heterogeneous. Although I focus mostly on Hindu women here, I remain profoundly aware not only that Hindu women themselves are a diverse group, with Dalit and tribal women being the most invisible among them, but also that there are Indian women who adhere to other faiths, including Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists, and Jains. Many scholars have emphasized the multiplicity of Indian women, but the need to continue to do so becomes clear when we look at the standard ways in which they are characterized. The international media regularly and painstakingly showcase atrocities against women in India (e.g., the bestial gang rape and subsequent death of a young woman in the capital city, New Delhi, in 2012). While such reporting and recording is crucial in order to win justice for victims of heinous crimes, it has not been sufficiently balanced with other narratives and portrayals of women as actors and subjects. All too often, Indian women are caricatured as the innocent victims of a supposedly uniform Indian tradition (Raheja 2010) and/or fetishized as exotic objects for the avid consumption of a supposedly multicultural audience. Monolithic narratives of "the poor Indian woman" serve as the gauge for India's transformation toward uniquely Western conceptions of modernity, with these women's lives dissected and interpreted through individualistic and legalistic lenses. Colonialism and the consequent exclusion of Indians from various global activities and enterprises has been justified on the grounds of how women are
In this qualitative, cultural psychological study of the childrearing beliefs of ten first-genera... more In this qualitative, cultural psychological study of the childrearing beliefs of ten first-generation Asian Indian Hindu parents in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, I sought to understand the socialization goals that these parents value the most as they raise their children. To gain access to parental beliefs and imaginaries, I used caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews, and participant observations over a one-year period. In the interviews, the parents emphasized independence, family ties, and the cultural and religious goals that they had for their children. Yet this was not as striking as what the parents did not say or what they only voiced peripherally: the importance they attached to their children’s academic achievement. Their reticence around this goal relative to other goals was conspicuous considering the children were remarkably accomplished students, whose daily routines were often built around academic activities. This paper explores th...
Psychology and Developing Societies, 2014
What do the poor in India say about the education their children are receiving? And how do they r... more What do the poor in India say about the education their children are receiving? And how do they remember their own years of schooling? This cultural psychological study of parental beliefs about education explored these questions by employing participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups and sentence-completion tasks. The participants were 19 low-income parents from the state of Gujarat, India, with a child between 8 and 18 years of age. Results indicated that these materially impoverished parents nostalgically deified teachers, whom they often referred to as Guru, while they characterised their young student selves as playful and distracted. They upheld the sanctity of the teacher–student relationship, only occasionally criticising the schools and teachers of their childhood. Examining the personal narratives of these parents, I argue that Guru is a shared cultural concept that they have appropriated as a cultural resource for understanding their own educational experi...
Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 2013
This paper is based on a yearlong cultural psychological study of immigrant Indian Hindu parents ... more This paper is based on a yearlong cultural psychological study of immigrant Indian Hindu parents in the United States. I examine here their repeated use of two phrases —“be independent” and “be close to family”—that they articulated as their most valued socialisation goals. I argue that although these English terms are seemingly self-evident, the meaning the parents attached to them, in conjunction with their simultaneous emphasis on cultural and religious-moral goals, was influenced by the content encapsulated in the cultural and religious script of Sanskār, a Hindi concept for which there is no semantic equivalent in English.
Ethos, 2013
What deeply held beliefs guide first-generation Asian Indian parents in the United States? How do... more What deeply held beliefs guide first-generation Asian Indian parents in the United States? How do parental conceptions of childrearing change as a result of immigration? What cultural conceptions of children and childrearing are maintained despite the pressures of assimilation? These were the core questions for this qualitative cultural psychological study of the ethnotheories of 10 Hindu parents of Asian Indian origin residing in Baltimore in the early 2000s. I employed caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews, and informal observations to gain access to these ethnotheories. The parents emphasized interpersonal skills, family ties, and daily routines in relation to social responsibility—ideas that relate to contemporary psychological paradigms but that also resonate with some idealized traditional core concepts from Hinduism. This article explores the constancy of certain cultural ideals in parenting across two continents and highlights the creation of a new conception of parenting based on the shared experience of immigration from various parts of India. In the process, it provides insights into the psychology of parenting among parents who purposefully integrate their culture of origin into the culture of their U.S. host land to define a new “authentic” Indian identity for their children.
Culture and Religion, 2014
This paper reports results from a study of the cultural belief systems, or ethnotheories, of Asia... more This paper reports results from a study of the cultural belief systems, or ethnotheories, of Asian Indian Hindu parents in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, in the USA. I adopted a cultural, developmental psychological approach and, over a one-year period, used caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews and participant observations to gain access to the ethnotheories of the parents. These immigrant parents emphasised family ties, unprompted adherence to the daily routine, knowledge of cultural origins and religiously inflected moral values. Exploring the nuances of their emphasis on cultural origins and moral and religious values, particularly as those relate to Hinduism and its transnational rearticulation, I show how the parents utilised domestic spaces and the temple as dual venues to systematically socialise their children into a new form of Hindu religious and ‘Indian’ ethnic identity in the USA.
Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 2023
In this paper, I interpret the perspectives of 19 economically oppressed parents and five teacher... more In this paper, I interpret the perspectives of 19 economically oppressed parents and five teachers from the Indian city of Vadodara in Gujarat, as they discuss the unprecedented emphasis on the learning of English in education in India. In this ethnographic study, I employed participant observations, sentence completion tasks, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Verbatim transcripts were uploaded into the qualitative software NVivo. Open, axial, and selective coding was used to identify themes, which were supplemented by coding notes and commentaries. The parents dwelt on the dominance of English in the educational and professional landscape in India, and designated English as the most presti- gious subject taught in school. They spoke eloquently about its irreplaceability for gaining social status and mobility. Notably, they indicated that the heavy emphasis on English is a frustrating reality given their own unfamiliarity with the language, which limits the amount of academic support they can offer their children.
Journal of Language. Identity and Education, 2023
n this paper, I interpret the perspectives of 19 economically oppressed parents and five teachers... more n this paper, I interpret the perspectives of 19 economically oppressed parents and five teachers from the Indian city of Vadodara in Gujarat, as they discuss the unprecedented emphasis on the learning of English in education in India. In this ethnographic study, I employed participant observations, sentence completion tasks, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Verbatim transcripts were uploaded into the qualitative software NVivo. Open, axial, and selective coding was used to identify themes, which were supplemented by coding notes and commen- taries. The parents dwelt on the dominance of English in the educational and professional landscape in India, and designated English as the most presti- gious subject taught in school. They spoke eloquently about its irreplaceability for gaining social status and mobility. Notably, they indicated that the heavy emphasis on English is a frustrating reality given their own unfamiliarity with the language, which limits the amount of academic support they can offer their children.
South Asian Diaspora, 2022
Proceedings of the XXIV Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2018, Guelph, Canada., 2020
Despite an increase in interracial or mixed marriages (intermarriages) globally, the experiences ... more Despite an increase in interracial or mixed marriages (intermarriages) globally, the experiences of couples in such marriages are generally under-researched, particularly within psychology. Using a cultural psychological framework and qualitative methods, this paper studies the psychosocial experiences of couples in intermarriages. It focuses on four South Asians in ethnically intermarriages in two settings: two Indian-origin men married to native Danish women in Denmark, and two Indian-origin women married to Euro-American men in Canada. Data from in-depth interviews were subjected to a thematic analysis yielding an array of themes, of which this paper presents the two most dominant themes across the two contexts: ‘transnationalism’ and ‘racialized experiences in social situations’. The results demonstrate that the participants lived transnational lives to varying degrees depending on their gender, socio-economic status and age, which in turn intersected with variables such as the nature of the transnational relationships they were attempting to sustain, and their own motivations and agency in maintaining these ties. While in some cases participants maintained a high level of contact with India through visits and digital technology, others kept up limited ongoing contact with the country of origin. Furthermore, varying racialized experiences emerged from the narratives, with differences in how these experiences were interpreted. While some participants recognized them as racial discrimination, others chose to rationalize these experiences in various ways. After offering an account of these results, the paper reflects briefly on the implications of these findings.
In B. Ashdown & A.N. Faherty (Eds.), Parents and caregivers across cultures: Positive development from infancy through adulthood. Switzerland: Springer. , 2020
In this qualitative, cultural psychological study of the childrearing beliefs of ten first-genera... more In this qualitative, cultural psychological study of the childrearing beliefs of ten first-generation Asian Indian Hindu parents in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, I sought to understand the socialization goals that these parents value the most as they raise their children. To gain access to parental beliefs and imaginaries, I used caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in- depth interviews, and participant observations over a one-year period. In the interviews, the parents emphasized independence, family ties, and the cultural and religious goals that they had for their children. Yet, this was not as striking as what the parents did not say or what they only voiced peripherally: the importance they attached to their children’s academic achievement. Their reticence around this goal relative to other goals was conspicuous considering the children were remarkably accomplished students, whose daily routines were often built around academic activities. This paper explores the motivations and the meanings underlying this silence.
In C.M. Brown, U. P. Gielen, J.L. Gibbons & J.Kuriansky (Eds.), Women’s evolving lives: Global and Psychosocial perspectives. New York, NY: Springer., 2017
In G. Rich, U. Gielen, & H. Takooshian (Eds.), Internationalizing the Teaching of Psychology Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc., 2017
Psychology and Developing Societies, Mar 2014
What do the poor in India say about the education their children are receiving? And how do they r... more What do the poor in India say about the education their children are receiving? And how do they remember their own years of schooling? This cultural psychological study of parental beliefs about education explored these questions by employing participant observation, in- depth interviews, focus groups and sentence-completion tasks. The par- ticipants were 19 low-income parents from the state of Gujarat, India, with a child between 8 and 18 years of age. Results indicated that these materially impoverished parents nostalgically deified teachers, whom they often referred to as Guru, while they characterised their young student selves as playful and distracted. They upheld the sanctity of the teacher–student relationship, only occasionally criticising the schools and teachers of their childhood. Examining the personal narratives of these parents, I argue that Guru is a shared cultural concept that they have appropriated as a cultural resource for understanding their own educational experiences and reconstructing their childhood selves in acts of remembering. Upholding this ancient concept also allows them to stake a claim to their ethnocultural belonging in the present.
Culture and Religion, Feb 2014
This paper reports results from a study of the cultural belief systems, or ethnotheories, of Asia... more This paper reports results from a study of the cultural belief systems, or ethnotheories, of Asian Indian Hindu parents in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, in the USA. I adopted a cultural, developmental psychological approach and, over a one-year period, used caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews and participant observations to gain access to the ethnotheories of the parents. These immigrant parents emphasised family ties, unprompted adherence to the daily routine, knowledge of cultural origins and religiously inflected moral values. Exploring the nuances of their emphasis on cultural origins and moral and religious values, particularly as those relate to Hinduism and its transnational rearticulation, I show how the parents utilised domestic spaces and the temple as dual venues to systematically socialise their children into a new form of Hindu religious and ‘Indian’ ethnic identity in the USA.
J. Wong (Ed.), Child raising across cultures: Practices, values and scripts, [Special forum]. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 42(4), 393-410., 2013
This paper is based on a yearlong cultural psychological study of immigrant Indian Hindu parents ... more This paper is based on a yearlong cultural psychological study of immigrant Indian Hindu parents in the United States. I examine here their repeated use of two phrases —“be independent” and “be close to family”—that they articulated as their most val- ued socialisation goals. I argue that although these English terms are seemingly self- evident, the meaning the parents attached to them, in conjunction with their simulta- neous emphasis on cultural and religious-moral goals, was influenced by the content encapsulated in the cultural and religious script of Sanska ̄r, a Hindi concept for which there is no semantic equivalent in English.
ETHOS, Nov 2013
What deeply held beliefs guide first-generation Asian Indian parents in the United States? How do... more What deeply held beliefs guide first-generation Asian Indian parents in the United States? How do parental conceptions of childrearing change as a result of immigration? What cultural conceptions of children and childrearing are maintained despite the pressures of assimilation? These were the core questions for this qualitative cultural psychological study of the ethnotheories of 10 Hindu parents of Asian Indian origin residing in Baltimore in the early 2000s. I employed caregiver diaries, ecological inventories, repeated in-depth interviews, and informal observations to gain access to these ethnotheories. The parents emphasized interpersonal skills, family ties, and daily routines in relation to social responsibility—ideas that relate to contemporary psychological paradigms but that also resonate with some idealized traditional core concepts from Hinduism. This article explores the constancy of certain cultural ideals in parenting across two continents and highlights the creation of a new conception of parenting based on the shared experience of immigration from various parts of India. In the process, it provides insights into the psychology of parenting among parents who purposefully integrate their culture of origin into the culture of their U.S. host land to define a new “authentic” Indian identity for their children.
Intercultural Education, 2008
Traditional courses in developmental psychology treat the development of white, middle-class Euro... more Traditional courses in developmental psychology treat the development of white, middle-class European American children as normative. This approach offers an inaccurate representation of child development, displays a lack of sensitivity towards the cultural diversity of students, and fails to meet these students’ intellectual needs. This paper describes an attempt at rectifying this ethical, paradigmatic error in an undergraduate course on child development and culture. Key concepts at the interface of culture and development in cultural geographical zones that contrasted with the European-American tradition were systematically treated, employing varied instructional strategies. The experience suggests that synthesizing a multicultural classroom with a multicultural syllabus compels students to confront their own intellectual ethnocentrism, diversifies intellectual experience and, for minority students, addresses an intellectual lacuna that they may not yet have articulated.
Uploads
Papers by Hema Ganapathy-Coleman
Forthcoming. In R. Moodley, K. Kenney & S. Raghunandan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health.
Forthcoming. In R. Moodley, K. Kenney & S. Raghunandan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Interracial Relationships and Mental Health.