The Strategic Use of Blame

Annabelle,

Simone,

Mihranush,

Ethan

Reading:

Branagan, Lesley. “‘I Will Never Forgive Him’: Blame, Precarious Kinship, and Illness in Low‐income Urban India,” 2024, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 30 (1): 187–204. doi:10.1111/1467-9655.14054.

Summary:

In “‘I Will Never Forgive Him’: Blame, Precarious Kinship, and Illness in Low‐income Urban India,” Lesley Branagan (2024) aims to examine and illuminate the role of blame within kinship relationships, mainly through the lens of women experiencing serious or chronic illness in Delhi, India. As women are forced into silence by the hand of a dominating patriarchal society, the author argues that the strategy of blaming men for their inability to maintain their kinship obligations gives women a voice that is resistant to submissive obedience. Ultimately, blaming is a tool that forges a degree of agency amid illness and neglect by forcing men to reflect upon their failures and be more attentive to their treatment of women.

Branagan (2024) provides detailed accounts of Zeenat and Geeta, who fall chronically or otherwise seriously ill due to the negligence of their kin. The narratives of these women illustrate the complexities of blame within kinship dynamics. For example, when Geeta sustained a foot malady, she was not met with any medical attention until she actively sought it herself. This resentment coalesced into corrective behavior that caused her brother to step up and “collect her medicines from the hospital every week” (Branagan 2024, 12). The women, embittered by their thankless work, resort to noncompliance within their respective roles. What stood out from the reading is not merely what these women are not receiving from their families but how much they give: “You give them [husbands] your heart, soul, your entire youth, but you get nothing in return.” Such recalls the work of Saba Mahmood, who argues that “[a]gency … is … the capacity to realize one’s interests against the weight of custom, tradition, transcendental will, or other obstacles (whether individual or collective)” (Mahmood 2001, 206). In this case, blame, a seemingly insignificant act, can be read as an example of contextualized feminist agency in low-income urban India.  

References

Branagan, Lesley. “‘I Will Never Forgive Him’: Blame, Precarious Kinship, and Illness in Low‐income Urban India,” 2024, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 30 (1): 187–204. doi:10.1111/1467-9655.14054. 

Mahmood, Saba. “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival.” Cultural Anthropology. 16 no. 2: 202–236, 2001.

How would you describe the “taste” of the text?

Bitterness and disdain in the back of your throat are displayed in Branagan’s writing and represent how the constant desperation many women face is done so in vain. The playlist lends itself to these general themes in several aspects. For example, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” tells of an individual that sucks the very lifeblood out of the speaker through their cruel and negligent ways. We chose Dimak because the song’s story - wherein the speaker is tied with chains, and her partner is wearing a mask - captures this form of betrayal. The boiling point of resentment and anger is encapsulated by Paris Paloma’s “Labour,” which lists the contradictory duties of women and echoes generations of frustration through a chorus of women’s voices. To reflect the growing and active discontent of the women in the articles, we also selected Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” to promote thinking more hopefully of life with the acknowledgment that not everything will go as planned.

How does this playlist complement (visually, somatically, sonically, vibe, taste) the text?

We decided to order our songs in a way that begins with serious, helpless, and frustrated feelings but transitions to feelings of hope and what a good life worth living is about. Vampire fits this text best, so we began our playlist with it. To conclude the playlist, we used Queen’s “I Want To Break Free” to symbolize the hopeful tone of the text’s ending. The playlist, thoughtfully structured to evoke a spectrum of emotions from despair to hope, amplifies these themes. Despite the controversial nature of some song choices, the overarching message is that the quest for understanding, blame, healing, and, ultimately, liberation is a universal human endeavor.

Were there ethical concerns or debates that came up while creating this playlist?

Songs and artists can have controversial elements, and choosing a song by The Smiths, whose lead singer is Morrissey, was somewhat controversial in that Morrissey has had moments where he was “canceled” for making racially insensitive comments. However, the song we chose, “I Don’t Owe You Anything,” is full of blame and how people owe each other deeds, and it fits nicely with the text without bringing up racially insensitive topics.