Modern times has seen a rapid rise in migration, largely from global south to global north. Migrants move in search of better economic and career prospects or are enforced. This paper pertains to economic migrants from India to Australia, and incorporates three key concepts- society, culture, and evolution in modern Indian society. I will explore the social processes of gender, kinship, and ethnicity in the context of migration, transnational cultural changes, and impacts on health and safety of women. Exposure to industrialisation and modernisation is changing India, and with it, the lives of Indian women. They are better educated than their mothers, and wealthier. How does modernisation and migration benefit the status of Indian women? Do they continue to be the subjects of traditional societal gender roles of modesty and submission, or is there a change in women’s position in the family and society? Is the new migrant Indian woman assertive, confident and claims her power, like the Goddess Durga, or does she follow the ideal of the submissive, pleasing wife modelled on Sita—the consort of Lord Rama of the epic Ramayana.
Marriage is an essential, defining moment in many women’s lives, but it’s not always a happy one, be it in India or elsewhere in the world—including Australia.
I am a psychiatrist researching and supporting victim-survivors of domestic family violence in Australian Indian community. The most hard-hitting stories of transnational abuse, dowry exploitation, economic exploitation, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation made me study cultural influences. How could these things be stopped? To answer this question, I had to find answers to many others. I will present research findings that will attempt to answer what makes women travel to Australia? What are the roles of globalisation, culture, migration, acculturation stress, the pressures of moving into a new country?
