DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES invites you to
A talk by Dr. Katherine Twamley UCL, London “Love and (in)equality amongst Gujarat Indians in the UK and India”


Dr. Katherine Twamley is a senior lecturer at UCL Institute of Education, London. She completed her Masters in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and PhD from City University London. Her doctoral research focused on love, sexuality and marriage among Gujaratis in India and the UK. She has several publications in international journals and has delivered talks in a variety of social science fora. 


Discourses of ideal intimate relationships are typically linked with those of partner equality. Scholarship on the relationship between intimacy and gender equality is less clear: Second wave feminists argued that false romantic promises trap women into inherently unequal marriages, while work in the 1990s from primarily male sociologists argued that intimacy can act as a positive force for equality, both within and beyond the couple relationship. Drawing on research with young heterosexual Indians of Gujarati origin in the UK and India, Dr. Twamley will discuss how participants’ aspirations for intimate equal relationships were understood (i.e. what constituted an equal relationship) and whether and how it was realised. Dr. Twamley will discuss that far from enabling more equality, couples’ aspirations for a ‘love marriage’ stood in the way of a more egalitarian relationship.