Mapping the Women’s Voices in India: An Analysis

Abstract

Women’s studies as an interdisciplinary subject, focuses on the roles, experiences, and achievements of women in society. There has been tremendous growth in research, scholarship and action related works in the subject area of women’s studies. This is to be made visible and the research trends are to be identified to decide upon and evaluate the focus of the subject. Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), through their thesis and dissertation repository project named ‘Shodhganga’, provides a wonderful opportunity to identify the research trends in various subject areas, and ‘women’s studies’ has been chosen as the scope of the present paper. A total of seven contributing universities, two general and five women universities, are chosen for the purpose. For these seven universities, all the PhD theses submitted for last five decades (since 1970’s), relating to different women related issues are taken into consideration to map the research trend. The results show, that researches regarding women related issues have continuously increased and particularly in the new millennium the trend is experiencing almost an exponential growth. Almost 80% of the total theses in the subject area have been submitted after 2000 and the current decade i.e. 2011-17 is undoubtedly the most productive one. The subject area of ‘Women Employment’ and ‘Women in Literature’ has always dominated the field. The research areas got more diverse from 1990’s and particularly in the new millennium newer fields are started to be explored.