Parental Gate-Keeping in Diasporic

Journal of Marketing Management, 2006, 22, 979-1008
ISSN1472-1376/2006/9-10/00979 + 29 Westburn Publishers Ltd.

Andrew Lindridge
1

and Margaret K. Hogg

Parental Gate-keeping in Diasporic
Indian Families: Examining the
Intersection of Culture, Gender and
Consumption

OU Business School

Lancaster University
Management School
Stories of familial memories, histories and daily life,
from sixteen daughters of diasporic Indian families
living in Britain, are used to examine how culture,
gender and consumption are negotiated within
family settings. The differing gate-keeping roles
played by parents, children and grandparents
within families, in resisting or promoting the
negotiation of cultural boundaries, have not been
examined before. This provides a crucial
opportunity to examine the changing pattern(s) of
power, identity and gender roles in ethnic families;
the gap in research on gender roles within the
family; the family as part of a social system; the
cultural embeddedness of family relationships; and
the family at a more disaggregated level. These
daughters stories identified the polarisation of
parental positions over a number of key issues,
notably language, media and consumption (e.g.
food, alcohol, clothing); showed the importance of
understanding gender as performance across the
family/societal boundaries; and demonstrated the
centrality of communities and networks in
supporting and restraining different interpretations
of culture, consumption and gender by mothers and
fathers.

Keywords: family stories, gate-keeping, gender, consumption, culture,
daughters, mothers and fathers

1
Correspondence: Andrew Lindridge, OU Business School, Michael Young Building,
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, Tel: +44 (0)1908 655
888, Fax: +44 (0)1908 655 898, Email: a.m.lindridge@open.ac.uk

980 Andrew Lindridge and Margaret K. Hogg

Introduction

We examine the inter-relationships between culture, gender and
consumption within the context of diasporic Indian families living in Britain.
These families have become increasingly prominent because of films like
Bend it like Beckham and Bhaji on the Beach and programmes like The
Kumars; Goodness, Gracious Me; and Life Isnt All Ha Ha Hee Hee; but
remain largely neglected within marketing and consumer research. In
contrast to earlier work on British Indian families (Hastings 2000; Jamal and
Chapman 2001; Lindridge and Dibb 2003; Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004;
Lindridge 2005; Lindridge and Dhillon 2005; Sekhon and Szmigin 2005), we
concentrate on how consumption is used within families to negotiate cultural
boundaries. The differing gate-keeping roles played by parents, children and
grandparents within families in resisting or promoting the negotiation of
cultural boundaries have not been examined before. And yet this is
important because it provides a crucial opportunity to understand the
changing pattern(s) of power, identity and gender roles in ethnic families; to
address the gap in research on gender roles within the family (Gentry,
Commuri and Jun 2003); to examine the family as part of a social system
(Commuri and Gentry 2000, p. 2); to examine the factors which make a
familys interpersonal relations cultur[ally]-embedded (Commuri and
Gentry 2000, p. 23); and to examine the family unit at a more disaggregate
level (John 1999, p. 24) e.g. father-son, father-daughter or sibling
relationships.
Our research draws on the family stories as told and experienced by
daughters because firstly, they embody their familys cultural values for the
current and next generations (e.g. as future mothers); and secondly, they often
experience particularly keenly the different cultural and gendered pressures as
they themselves represent sites of contestation or conflict. From their stories
of family life we identify the changing nature of consumption, culture, gender
roles and power within Indian families living in Britain, in response to the
processes of negotiating cultural boundaries. We use Thompsons (1993)
criteria of gender construction (i.e. socio-historical contexts, cultural and
structural contexts, valued personal outcomes and daily interaction
processes) to structure our review of family and gender issues, concluding
with their relationship to consumption; before describing our ethno-
consumerist methodology; discussing our findings from these stories of
familial histories, memories and daily life; and briefly examining the
implications for marketing theory and management.

Socio-Historical Contexts
The 2001 census (HMSO 2006) indicated that over a million people of
Parental Gate-keeping in Diasporic Indian Families 981

Indian descent live in Britain, representing one of its largest diasporic
groups. A diasporic group emerges when an ethnic group refuses to or is not
allowed to homogenise into the dominant culture (Bhatia 2002; Bourhis
1997). This is true of the experience of many Indian families living in Britain
(Hutnik 1991; Lindridge and Dhillon 2005). A consequence of diasporic
communities is a constant renegotiating between past and present,
modernity and traditions (Luke 1996), self and others (Bhatia 2002), and
differing cultural values (Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004, Lindridge and
Dhillon 2005). This process of renegotiation may be moderated through
communities and networks (Appadurai 1990, p. 297). One of the best
examples of where this renegotiation, moderation and contestation take place
for ethnic minorities is within the family.

Family, Cultural and Structural Contexts
The family represents an important site where culture, consumption and
gender intersect. In reviewing gendered behaviour within families, we follow
the social constructionist approach where gender is understood as the
product of social processes and as embodying cultural meanings of
masculinity and femininity (Fox and Murry 2000, p. 1164). This means
somebodys gender is not neatly equated with his or her sex. Rather men
and women not only vary in their degree of masculinity and femininity but
have to be constantly persuaded or reminded to be masculine or feminine.
That is, men and women have to do gender rather than be a gender
(Fox and Murry 2000, p. 1164), most significantly via social interactions e.g.
voices, bodies (Martin 1998, cited in Fox and Murry 2000, p. 1164), dress and
consumption (such as food and alcohol). Gendered associations and
meanings (Kacen 2000) arise from a range of micro and macro settings,
including individual, social, institutional and cultural contexts.
Culture represents an evolving and ongoing set of norms and values,
where acculturation is characterised by conflict, creativity, democratisation,
disagreement, innovation, internal or external industrialisation and
modernisation (Oyserman 1993; Rohner 1984). Culture can be seen as three
ideational themes: cognitive, structuralist and symbolic (Keesing 1974). We
locate our understanding of the family within the structuralist theme,
notably within social networks (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1998) where the
community represents the societal structure which supports and maintains
the family. The location of the family within a cultural system does not
suggest a static or one-way relationship. Rather, we argue that diasporic
families are dynamic, evolving and adapting to their surroundings over time.
We view the family as a collection of interacting sub-systems (dyads, triads)
that affect each other, whilst being influenced by world views such as culture
(White 1999). We thus locate the family unit within a systems theory

perspective, recognising Woods (1995) argument that to understand the
family requires recognition of the vibrant dialectic that gives rise to
inequalities that are inherently political.
The family is paramount in Indian daily life. Children are socialized into
collectivist cultural values of co-operation, duty, favouritism,
interdependence, nurturing, obedience and reliability (Triandis et al. 1988).
Loyalty to the family is regarded as dharma, i.e. sacred duty (Lindridge and
Dhillon 2005) with the need to enhance family status representing one of the
most important goals which [British] South Asian [incl. Indian] families set
themselves (Ballard 1982, p. 184). The role of children is to be supportive of
their parents. For Indian families living in Britain this can generate conflicts.
Parents socialise their children into Indian gender specific aspects of inter-
dependence (Stopes-Roe and Cochrane 1990). For daughters this means the
allocation of household chores and possibly being discouraged from further
education and employment (Bhopal 1997; Dosanjh and Ghuman 1997).
However Gilroy (1987) counters that this is a false Western stereotype of
Indian daughters as shy, passive and timid victims, based on the belief that
daughters exist in an environment that heavily emphasises discipline and
strictness (Parmar 1990). Instead there is some evidence to suggest that
second generation Indian daughters, although socialised into obedience
(Stopes-Roe and Cochrane 1990), demonstrated behaviours that challenged
these values, such as visiting night clubs against their parents wishes
(Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004). In contrast, sons in Indian families in
Britain are given greater social and cultural independence in exploring their
Indian masculine identities in British society (Dosanjh and Ghuman 1997;
Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004).

Valued Personal Outcomes and Daily Interactions
British Indian families interact with differing cultures on a daily basis.
These interactions provide many occasions when cultural understandings
and gender roles are challenged, negotiated and restructured. Gender roles
are experienced within a vibrant dialectic (Wood 1995) of political
inequalities within family life. This can be seen in the cultural categorisation
of gender roles within the daily lives of diasporic families. Mothering has to
be understood within specific historical contexts framed by interlocking
structures of race, class and gender (Collins 1994, p. 56). When we apply this
description to a diasporic group, we can see that restricted access to resources
limits the mothers range of options (Baca Zinn 1990, 1994). The family
assumes increased importance as the arena for the enactment of identity,
power and survival (Collins 1991). In this context, mothers roles as cultural
gate-keepers assume even greater importance. Family gate-keeping is a
collection of beliefs and behaviours that ultimately inhibit a collaborative

effort between men and women in family work by limiting mens
opportunities for learning and growing through caring for home and
children (Allen and Hawkins 1999, p. 200). However, gate-keeping should
not necessarily be seen as an act of disempowerment. Rather, such roles may
provide a significant sense of autonomy and power within the family
(Hawkins and Roberts 1992; Lamb 1997). In an immigrant community women
can embody the communal diasporic identity (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1989)
and often take responsibility for transmitting culturally appropriate values to
the family. This may be done through their central role in managing family
life and controlling household activities, such as food purchasing, preparation
and distribution, which are central to womens roles of household (De Vault
1991) and emotion (Hochschild 1975, 1979) management.
The role of fathering within the family is often more sensitive to
contextual influences than that of the mothering role (Doherty et al. 1998).
Fatherhood has become increasingly fragmented and politicised in terms of
status and power (Marsiglio et al. 2000), suggesting that traditional paternal
roles are under external cultural pressures to change, for instance from
British white society. Consequently individual, interpersonal and social
factors may make fathers in diasporic families more vulnerable to external
cultural pressures and changing expectations of male roles (e.g. as bread
winner). However there is evidence that husbands actively seek to maintain a
status quo that favours them rather than bring about changes to the
household that would be detrimental to themselves (Gentry, Commuri and
Jun 2003). Therefore men as husbands and fathers also seem to operate gate-
keeping mechanisms to protect their own roles and rights within the family
unit (Allen and Hawkins 1999) and sustain masculine hegemony.

Consumption, Family and Gender
Consumption sits at the intersection of culture and gender in family life.
The relationship between consumption and gender is strongly linked to
cultural systems that perpetuate and support specific gender roles and
associated behaviours: consumption has been genderedwomen have been
seen as consumers and consumption as a feminine activity, while men have
been seen as producers (Kacen 2000, p. 347). Female domination of
consumption has been noted in numerous aspects of consumer research,
including gender influence (see Qualls 1982) and power sharing (see Webster
and Rice 1996).
Inter and intra-generational influences also have important implications
within the intersection of culture, gender and consumption. A series of
studies (Moore and Lutz 1988; Moore, Wilkie and Lutz 2002) found that
mothers and daughters shared important information regarding purchasing
of brands, whilst Cotte and Wood (2004) noted parental and sibling influence

operated bi-directionally. That parents influence their children and vice-
versa is relatively well known, however sibling influence remains relatively
under-explored. Siblings socialise each other in their consumer behaviours
(Cotte and Wood 2004). This may be of specific significance for diasporic
families where issues of generational difference may provide alternative and
potentially conflicting perspectives regarding the consumption of culturally
construed products. For example, Indian parents in Britain often allow their
sons to consume products inherently identifiable with British white culture,
such as alcohol and clothing, whilst at the same time preventing their
daughters from having the same consumption choices (Lindridge, Hogg and
Shah 2004). It is possible that siblings mutually support each other in
challenging their parents influence and consume products that are outside of
their parents influence, such as alcohol.
Consumption of culturally construed possessions (e.g. food, clothing)
allows diasporic families to identify themselves with a desired set of cultural
values. For example, Indian families in Britain consume possessions that
reinforce their familys status in the community and their diasporic identities
(Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004; Lindridge 2005). The meaning of
possessions contribute to the construction of the culturally constituted
world precisely because they are a vital, tangible record of cultural meaning
that is otherwise intangible (McCracken 1986, p. 73).

Research Objectives, Design and Methodology

Objectives
The objectives of this exploratory study were: firstly, to understand how
consumption is used within diasporic families to negotiate cultural
boundaries; secondly, to identify the differing roles of family members in
resisting or promoting negotiation of cultural boundaries; thirdly, to show
how these roles are gendered; and finally to examine the different gendered
roles played by mothers and fathers as cultural gate-keepers within the
family setting.

Research Design
We used Meamber and Venkateshs (2000) ethno-consumerist framework
as the basis for our research design in order to ensure that the voices in these
diasporic families were heard and interpreted within their own context,
rather than within the researchers cultural context. This qualitative ethno-
consumerist research framework recognises the inherent western
ethnocentric biases in many earlier studies (Venkatesh 1995); and addresses
Collins (1991) accusation that previous research suffers from academic
colonialism. By explicitly recognising and understanding the potential

biases (in collection, interpretation and representation of the data) the
researchers aim to transcend them and approach the stories from the
participants cultural context. The ethno-consumerist framework is based on
three assumptions: (1) that behaviour is grounded in culture; (2) that cultural
categories are dependent upon both historical and socio-cultural forces as
well as current practices; and (3) that culture is constantly changing and,
therefore, so are categories of culture. This approach, therefore, helps the
researchers to access the cultural and societal contexts experienced by
diasporic families in 21
st
century Britain.
Implementing the ethno-consumerist framework consisted of two stages,
undertaken largely in parallel. The first stage required the selection of
participants that satisfied the cultural stance of this research, i.e. daughters
from Indian families living in Britain. Complementing this was the second
stage, which consisted of reviewing relevant published research. The second
stage provided an understanding of the cultural context as experienced by
diasporic families. The two stages were then combined and key themes were
identified which allowed us to understand, from a non-Western centric
perspective, the cultural and gendered contexts experienced by these young
women.

Participants
Sixteen British born young adult Indian women were recruited using a
mixture of personal contacts and acquaintances from a university in the
north west of England. Our participants were drawn from different socio-
economic backgrounds (ranging from average incomes to millionaire status
families) and were all born in the North-West of England. We chose
participants from the north west of England rather than London because
diasporic families in the capital tend to be better off (HMSO 2006), and live in
a more multi-cultural setting than those in the regions. We interviewed
young women who self-identified themselves as daughters and the
embodiment of their familys cultural values. Interviewing daughters allowed
us to hear womens voices, and thus address the issue that Western culture
defines men and masculine perspectives as normative, an androcentric point
of view is often assumed and imposed, yet not acknowledged in either social
life or research practice (Wood 1995, p. 112). We concentrated on a relatively
small group of participants, in line with previous interpretivist studies (e.g.
Fournier 1998; Fournier and Mick 1999; Holt and Thompson 2004; Thompson
2005; Tian and Belk 2005).

Method
Participants were interviewed over a period of thirteen months on two
separate occasions. Both interviews were informal using semi-structured

questioning, which ensured a considerable degree of participant autonomy,
whilst remaining thematic and topic-centred. This approach aimed to
understand the respondents own perspectives, explore the way they shared
common understandings, and gain insights into particular experiences
(Hannabuss 1996). The interviews lasted between 60 and 120 minutes, were
taped, transcribed and analysed. The first interview concentrated on
understanding the underlying issues of family life for Indian women living
in Britain; the second set of interviews followed up the emergent themes
from the data analysed after the first round, for example: issues of gender
and power; community and gossip networks; and conflicting parental
attitudes towards retention of Indian cultural values.

Data Analysis
Spiggles (1994, p. 491) seven analytical stages (cf. Meamber and
Venkatesh 2000, p. 106) were followed in analysing all the transcripts. The
transcripts were read and then re-read allowing for the identification of
preliminary codes. The data was analysed and the coded data sheets were
annotated and collated in order to identify comparisons, metaphors and
tropes in the data (cf. Meamber and Venkatesh 2000, p. 106). Emerging
themes were developed allowing for the integration of relationships between
the constructs and the codes. This fits in with the interpretivist approach to
research which underpins the ethno-consumerist framework (Meamber and
Venkatesh 2000, p. 96). The literature was then revisited in order to inform
the interpretation and to subject the findings to theoretical scrutiny (Miles
and Huberman 1994).

Findings and Discussion

These family stories illustrate the vibrant dialectic (Wood 1995) between
culture, gender and consumption. This is briefly synthesised into a
conceptual figure (Figure 1) which depicts the central role of parents as the
primary gate-keepers in the processes of resisting or promoting negotiation
of cultural boundaries. These family stories acknowledge the importance of
both intergenerational (e.g. grandparents as well as parents) (Moore et al.
2002) and intragenerational (e.g. siblings) influences (Cotte and Wood 2004);
as well as communities and networks (Appadurai 1990). Using the
conceptual figure as an overarching framework, we present and interpret the
findings under four main headings which illustrate how closely inter-related
the themes of culture, gender and consumption are in these stories. We begin
by examining the families social histories and memories (notably their tales
of immigration); and then move on to their stories of everyday family life
(including the family as the source of culture and gender, and the family and

future plans); we then discuss family experiences in relation to cultural
practices, communities and networks; and conclude by examining family
consumption stories.

Culture

Figure 1. Family Stories of Gate-keeping

Families Social Histories and Memories: Tales of Immigration
Our families social histories and memories provide important insights
into the narratives used to promote or resist cultural change and construct
gender hierarchies in the family unit. The dominant social history and
memory for our participants were the immigration stories of their
grandparents and parents. These differed across generations. The stories
from their grandparents generation embodied Indian cultural values,
including romance and mystification, which were themes missing from their

Parents as Gatekeepers
Internal influences:

Intergenerational and
intragenerational influences
External influences:

Community and networks
Gender

Consumption

parents stories. For all these women their grandparents provided an
opportunity to reflect upon their own cultural identity. Grandparents feared
that their grandchildren might lose their Indian cultural values, and
grandfathers were as important as grandmothers in promoting these:

my granddad definitelyI think a bit more than my grandmother may
bebecause he was [the] head of the house and whatever he did we sort of
followed. (M4)
2

From their parents generation, it was their fathers immigration stories
which were predominant. These stories focused on their fathers arrival in
Britain without any money; how they had worked to educate themselves;
and how they had reaped the rewards of their endeavours later in life. These
stories were masculine stories of heroic journeys in which their fathers met
and overcame important obstacles. Some fathers had successfully
established businesses, whilst others had achieved positions of
organisational responsibility. Yet these narratives often included stories of
missed opportunities; of how cultural and physical differences had
sometimes alienated them from the world of work, as well as from wider
society. These stories about their fathers were often subtly mingled with
stories of racism and difficulties, hinting at far deeper personal wounds:

My Dad says it was only your own kind that would employ you when he was
working for Beechams, you know, it was like, you are not going to get that far
being an Indian man, you are not going to get that far up the rungs (S3)

The fathers stories reflected the sense of fragmentation (Marsigilio et al.
2000) which derived from the need to change their sense of cultural identity
to combat and overcome racism and the hardships of immigration. An
outcome of their fathers immigration experiences was the need to instil into
their children a desire to achieve in order to fulfil their fathers expectations.
The daughters accounts captured the emotionally laden messages which
carried encouragement (and sometimes coercion):

My dad has a saying, he says You have got to be that bit much better. I say
What do you mean by that? And its just the fact that at the end of the day you
are in a country and you are an Indian living [here]and you are different. The
colour of your skin is something people see although you might not feel it yourself

2
Participants are coded on the basis of their religious status, thus: Hindu = H,
Muslim = M and Sikh = S, with the adjacent number identifying the participant
number. Hence M4 represents our fourth Muslim participant.

sometimes but that is already a barrier against you so you have just got to [work
harder]. (H2)

Here a father is inviting his daughter to emulate the masculine story of
competition and achievement in the wider society in order to win
recognition and success; rather than the more typical feminine route of
domesticity, with a focus on family and home. This example of father-
daughter exchange illustrates the importance of Johns (1999) argument
about disaggregating families in order to understand the different processes
of socialisation.
There were fewer accounts from mothers. Their immigration stories
lacked the fathers themes of struggle and change. Instead their stories were
more humorous reports of cultural differences (e.g. dress codes). The mother
was located predominantly within the home, in an Indian cultural
perspective. This important difference in story telling reflects wider issues of
gender within the family structure. The dominant immigration stories,
presented from a masculine perspective, illustrated the male experience of
encountering the world outside the home as the wage earner. Their stories
reiterated the fathers position as the head of his family, as the breadwinner
battling with external and often hostile forces to provide for his family, and
as protector of his family from a threatening environment characterised by
racism. These narratives indicate that fathering is more contextually
determined than mothering (Doherty et al. 1998). Their fathers told stories of
conflict and creativity, as well as internal and external modernisation
(Oyserman 1993), central to adjusting to the new cultural context and life in
Britain; and to helping their sons and daughters to make similar adjustments.

Stories of Daily Life: The Family as the Source of Culture and Gender
Stories of daily life included descriptions of a variety of struggles linked to
cultural identity, power and gender. In their stories of everyday family life
the daughters identified the polarisation of parental positions over a number
of key issues, notably language, media and consumption. In contrast to their
fathers, mothers appeared to take a stronger stance against cultural
adaptation by taking responsibility for instilling Indian cultural values into
their children. This was seen as one of the primary responsibilities of
mothers; and reinforced an important power base for them within the home,
derived from their status in transmitting cultural values. None of our
participants mothers worked, regardless of social class or wealth status, in
effect limiting their range of options and resources to within the family (Baca
Zinn 1990, 1994) for sources of identity and power. Mothers exerted their
authority in the family through control of cultural identifiers, i.e. language
and media; as well as through consumption (e.g. control of the body via

clothing and food, see below). The emphasis which their mothers placed on
promoting Indian cultural values to their children suggests their important
role as cultural gate-keepers (Allen and Hawkins 1999). This act of gate-
keeping, along with the need for identity, power and survival (Collins 1991)
was apparent in the stories of their families daily lives. The process of
socialisation was aimed at all the children, but was particularly focused on
daughters and their eventual continuation, via marriage, of the cultural roles
of being an Indian wife and mother:

Its very much like where the mother is the primary sort of education point for the
children, very much so, culturally it is just like you have to do this, and it
prepares you for marriage (M1)

Mothers instilled Indian cultural values into their children, and thus often
promoted the maintenance of masculine hegemony within their traditional
culture. The central role of women as the embodiment of a communal
diasporic identity (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1989) was evident in the
struggle for control of cultural identifiers, i.e. language and media usage.
Language usage has been identified by psychologists (for example Farb
1974) as critically important for culture and gender. Most of these women
spoke English at home and rarely used their own ethnic language (e.g.
Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi or Tamil) suggesting adaptation to British white
culture. This was an example of where grandparents influence had not
managed to hold sway, though many women talked about using their ethnic
languages when with aunties and grandparents. Although our participants
could speak an ethnic language, in most cases their fathers had decided that
the English language would be spoken in their home. However, this decision
was not always mutual. Most participants spoke about how their mothers
either deliberately or through embarrassment preferred to speak in their own
native tongue, seeking to exert power via the cultural authority of language:

She [participants mother] use to write it [Punjabi] on [objects] and she used
to put it in your room because thats how important it was to her and we used to
get fined if we didnt speak [Punjabi]. If we said it in English we had to give
her [participants mother] 5p like out of our money box . (S3)

Disagreements between mothers and fathers over language usage were also
reflected in access to the media. Media represented important challenges to
parental boundaries between adherence to British white and Indian cultural
values. Where fathers predominantly encouraged watching English language
media, mothers appeared to deliberately enforce using Indian language
media, whether that was radio, television or the cinema:

I think my mum has that kind of [fear] she worries about us, that we are going to
get too Western influencedso when I am at home if I have got the radio on shes
always like [Are] You listening to an Asian radio station? Im like Its okay
mum, calm down but shell slyly come into the kitchen and change the radio
station [to a Punjabi language radio station]. (S4)

English language usage was associated with entry to the wider world, thus
encouraging both sons and daughters to take part in the world of work
outside the home, breaking down the gendered location for their parents
generation of men working outside the home on behalf of the family, whilst
women concentrated on family work (e.g. bringing up children) within the
home. What emerged were the cultural differences between the fathers and
mothers within our participants families. Whilst fathers appeared to
encourage breaking down the boundaries between the two cultures, mothers
tried to reinforce and perpetuate Indian cultural values within the family,
and thus resisted the drive within the family towards acculturation, again
highlighting themes of conflict, disagreement and modernisation (Oyserman
1993; Rohner 1984). Daughters saw their mothers as cultural gate-keepers,
keeping the values of the dominant society at bay, whilst promoting the
culture of origin.

Stories of Daily Life: the Family and Future Plans

The family represented an important context for debate about future work
plans, and these resonated with cultural and gendered issues. Our
participants (and their siblings) recognised the sacrifices which their fathers
had made, and thus the sense of indebtedness to their fathers to recognise
and reward their struggles through accepting familial-cultural obligations.
However at the same time many of our participants sought to resist their
fathers pressure either to continue the family businesses or enter the
professions advocated by their fathers:

My dads business he built it up from scratch. He says I did it for my family and
all this and now it has come to the stage when my dad wants to retire and he is
looking here for one of his four kids to take it over. My sister has gone off to
London my brother Zab, he doesnt want to take it over because he sees how
stressed my dad gets and its a big thing to handle and Im not too sure I want
to do it. You want to do something with your life for yourself and that really
upsets my dad because he has worked so hard. I feel upset for him and to some
degree I am thinking possibly I will go to work [for him]. (H2)

Yet, although our participants respected their fathers, their decisions did not
necessarily follow their fathers wishes. This suggests increasing levels of

independence from the family; and challenging of some traditional areas of
masculine hegemony in their culture. This finding differs from Stopes-Roe
and Cochrane (1990) observation of Indian children in Britain being
socialised into family inter-dependence. This increasing independence,
ironically, came from our participants fathers encouraging all their children
to obtain a university education. This not only provided them with greater
opportunities but as our participants noted themselves, also the means to
challenge their fathers opinions, so that daughters found themselves
performing in ways not traditionally regarded as female: i.e. not acquiescent;
not accepting of authority but challenging fathers (and brothers) rights to
make decisions on their behalf.

Stories of Family Experiences: Cultural Practices, Communities and
Networks
Communities and networks are central to the process of cultural
(re)negotiation (Appadurai 1990) which confronts immigrant families.
However, these communities and networks provide not only support, but
also restraints. Maintaining the family reputation is central to the familys
place in the community. A dominant motivator was the over-arching need of
all family members to perpetuate a positive family image to both their
community and wider society, confirming earlier observations (Ballard 1982).
The issue of family reputation was important to all our families; but parents
took different views on how to maintain and enhance it.
The majority of our participants noted that although their fathers were
concerned about family reputation, this typically meant ensuring that their
children had succeeded in life, and thus enhanced the family reputation. The
need for fathers to compare their children to other families was a common
theme, reflecting both a masculine need to compete and also a desire to
demonstrate their own success through their children. This need for
comparison chimed with fathers drive to maintain a favourable status quo
(Gentry, Commuri and Jun 2003) by achieving recognition and approval
from other fathers. Fathers attitudes to issues relating to individuality and
cultural conformity were often in direct conflict with mothers views:

my dad is like You shouldnt give a shit, hes like you know Sod it. You be
you! and hes really cool like that but my mum shes like Oh no you cant do
that because what if someone sees you do that (S5)

In contrast mothers strong adherence to Indian cultural values concentrated
on maintaining the family reputation by ensuring that the Indian community
only spoke positively about their family. Regardless of our participants
family wealth, all our participants mothers appeared to actively engage in

monitoring other families and their allegiance to Indian cultural values (e.g.
respect, duty). Social gatherings provided an important resource for mothers
to make tangible their identity and power (Collins 1991) through sharing
stories of family achievements and cultural misdemeanours. These social
networks helped control family life within the community (Coleman 1988;
Putnam 1998):

you know when someone is gossiping. My mum meets up with a group of
women its called a kitty, its like a gambling thing. But they do it every week
and I know then a lot gets discussed then amongst all the wives. So it would be
five weekly meetings. (H2)

The differing responses of our participants fathers and mothers regarding
family status were made more complex by the role of male siblings. Whereas
sisters were seen as sharing in the role of future bearers of Indian cultural
values, this did not apply to the participants brothers. Sons in Indian culture
are held symbolically in high value, being seen as carrying the family name
and bloodline into the future. Sons were cherished and given a freedom
which was not offered to daughters, reinforcing the divide of appropriate
gendered behaviours outside the home:

Thats why it comes back to the point of sending your sons to university, wanting
to provide thats when the parents were thinking OK so theyve [the son]
achieved a decent life for us in retirement age, so you dont need to choose a [old
persons] home for us. (M1)

Sons duties related to their responsibilities for caring for their parents in old
age. The relative cultural freedom offered to participants brothers provided
an important cultural intervention and illustrated the symbolic role played
by brothers as change agents. This indicated more support for Cotte and
Woods (2004) argument about the importance of understanding intra-
generational influences in family life. Brothers often directly challenged
parental decisions that affected their female siblings. In effect, brothers acted
as cultural enablers, providing their sisters with freedom to express their
identities, supporting earlier research (Dosanjh and Ghuman 1997;
Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004). Brothers were important allies for their
sisters, working in collaboration with their fathers to gain release from Indian
cultural constraints typically imposed by their mothers:

I cant remember exactly what the issues would be over but my brother will have
broken down the barrier of some sort and when it comes to me its like Oh no, no
you are a girl, you cant. But then my brother turns around and says Thats
stupid, what are you saying here? You want to do what you want, you are old

enough, you are 18. You have got a good head on your shoulders you are not
going to succeed like that. And my mum and dad do, sometimes do listen to him
because he is a smart boy. (H2)

The familys relationships within their own cultural world highlighted the
crucial role of inter-generational and intra-generational gate-keeping, and
particularly the different stances of mothers and fathers towards the
resistance or promotion, respectively, of cultural negotiation. Many aspects
of our participants families indicated instances of acculturation stress,
confirming previous research (for example, Lindridge and Dhillon 2005;
Aronowitz 1992; Berry 1990, 1997; and Vega and Rumbaut 1991).

Family Stories of Consumption
Finally, we examine how consumption is used in negotiating cultural,
gender and power structures amongst our diasporic families by discussing
food, clothing, alcohol and conspicuous consumption.
Food. One of the central mechanisms which women use to create family
life is the organising and provision of food (e.g. De Vault 1991). In these
stories mothers power within families was often exercised through food,
which is a significant carrier of cultural meaning, both in terms of what is
consumed and how it is consumed. Food is an important cultural metaphor
for any family unit, representing memories and providing meanings for
family behaviours. During our interviews two themes emerged regarding
mothers and food production: firstly, the need to use food as a wider means
of engaging with the community:

I think there is a sense of pride my mum is always doing dinner parties, and she
strives all out to make it the best dinner party every party she does. And that is
what she takes pride in but I think that is just the kind of person she is. I guess
that comes down to the gossip again doesnt it community. (H2)

Secondly food was used to maintain, perpetuate and reinforce family
networks. The production of food and meals was central to the nurturing role
of motherhood and family life (De Vault 1991). Mothers purchased,
produced and provided the food, confirming that consumption is a feminine
activity (Kacen 2000) but also a way of exerting gender influence (Qualls
1982), power sharing (Webster and Rice 1996) and cultural values. Such
responsibilities are the source of autonomy and power within the family
(Hawkins and Roberts 1992; Lamb 1997). This was reinforced through clearly
demarcated roles and strictly enforced gate-keeping by the mothers (Allen
and Hawkins 1999):

My mum takes the attitude I have brought you up, I still pay for your food any

way and thats what I am going to do and I will still cook for you as if you still
live here and send them to you. (H5)

The production and consumption of food amongst our participants families
also illustrated different gender and socialisation processes. The majority of
our participants commented on how their mothers would deliberately cook
specific favourite foods for their brothers when they returned home. This
production act was rarely replicated for our female participants, suggesting
reinforcement of Indian cultural values of prizing sons. However, this
apparent favouritism towards sons did not produce feelings of rejection
amongst daughters. Instead this favouritism was usually experienced as a
humorous reflection of how Indian cultural values were upheld and
promoted by their mothers; and reinforced male hegemony.
The ability of our participants to cook Indian foods produced the only
notable behavioural differences in terms of religious categories. Hindu and
Muslim participants readily acknowledged their ability to cook various
Indian dishes, although they all admitted that they could not compete with
their mothers in terms of quality and taste. However, our Sikh participants
were embarrassed to admit that they struggled to cook Indian dishes. They
felt that there had been less emphasis on developing cooking skills in their
family homes. Their fathers had emphasised the importance of concentrating
on other skills apart from homemaking.
Alcohol. Mothers cultural control over the family, via food, clothing and
alcohol, did not go unchallenged within their families. Alcohol was a way
that fathers sought to counter balance their wives cultural influence and
power. Alcohol is an important metaphor in Indian culture, representing a
challenge to religious dogma and the need to maintain family reputations but
also recognised as symbolic of cultural adaptation to British white society.
Half of our participants spoke about how their fathers encouraged their
children in the moderate consumption of alcohol, as a direct challenge to
their mothers Indian cultural authority in the home:

My dad always has been quite liberal with that. Hell have a bottle of wine with
dinner and hell ask me and my sisters if we want a glass. My mum doesnt really
like it though. (S4)

Fathers encouragement of alcohol consumption directly challenged Indian
cultural values and indirectly matriarchical power within the family.
Clothing. Clothing often proved to be another contentious issue between
parents, and between mothers and daughters. Clothing expressed cultural
identities and, indirectly, parental allegiances. All our participants readily
wore Western style clothing outside the home. This decision was largely

determined by the type of cultural interaction (e.g. work place). During
Indian social events Indian clothing was deemed appropriate. There were
gender differences here. Men could wear Western clothing for all social
occasions (including weddings and religious events). Women, on the other
hand, were required to wear culturally appropriate clothing, i.e. Indian. This
supports previous findings (Lindridge, Hogg and Shah 2004; Anwar 1998)
which were linked to reinforcing and perpetuating a positive family image.
When this gender difference was explored further, participants spoke about
the need for women to be seen to be the epitome of Indian cultural values,
i.e. chaste, modest and respectful to elders. The motivation behind this
behaviour lay in the need to avoid malicious gossip from the Indian
community that might damage the familys reputation; an issue that was of
utmost concern for our participants mothers. Clothing then became an
important criterion to use in judging a familys cultural and moral values;
and also for enacting gender (Fox and Murry 2000), notably by controlling
the body (Martin 1998). Mothers were central in influencing their daughters
views of what might be deemed to be suitable clothing:

The first job I had, I had to wear a skirt. My mum didnt like that that much and
it was a case of I would wear sort of like tights with it just so that she felt
comfortable. Because when people see me, they see sort of Oh she has got her legs
bare and it will get back to my parents. (S4)

Daughters often resisted their mothers attempt to control their clothing.
However they enjoyed shopping together for clothes. Mothers used these
clothing purchases as a means of engaging with their daughters and sharing
intimate moments, whilst reaffirming and asserting the mothers cultural
agenda. Clothes purchased also reflected our participants fashion tastes,
representing collusion between mother and daughter reminiscent of Moore
et als (2002) observation of mothers and daughters purchasing and sharing
brand information.
Conspicuous Consumption. In terms of high involvement or conspicuously
consumed products (Mason 1981, 1998) our participants and their siblings
acknowledged their direct involvement, for instance when buying capital
intensive products, such as electrical goods or cars, where brand imagery is
important. Fathers regularly made the final purchase decision, but their
daughters narratives showed the central role of mothers in the decision-
making process:

If someone like had seven holidays that year and bought a new car my mum
would be like Why arent we doing that? to my dad. They are rich, lets do


something. We would always have a holiday every year. We always had a new
car every three years. (H1)

The need for conspicuous consumption was related to family status (Ballard
1982) and social networks (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1998) which were often
dominated by women who assessed cultural worth through consumption
acts. Branded goods were an opportunity to demonstrate status and success
in social and cultural settings:

For example, if we are going to a wedding and all you need is [a car for] just our
relatives and my dad will get in his car whatever it is at the moment or something
and mum will go No we are not taking that! We are taking the Rolls [Rolls
Royce]. And she [the mother] goes You know you need to arrive in something
nice. (H2)

This materialistic discussion of conspicuous consumption i.e. showing off by
taking the Rolls, echoes many of the themes in recent media portrayals of
British Indian subculture.

Discussion Including Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Management
Implications

The differing gate-keeping roles played by parents, children and
grandparents within families in resisting or promoting the processes of
adaptation have not been examined before. And yet this is important because
this study of diasporic families provides a crucial opportunity to understand
the changing pattern(s) of power, identity and gender roles in ethnic families;
to address the gap in research on gender roles within the family (Gentry,
Commuri and Jun 2003); to examine the family as part of a social system
(Commuri and Gentry 2000, p. 2); to examine the factors which make a
familys interpersonal relations cultur[ally]-embedded (Commuri and
Gentry 2000, p. 23); and to examine the family unit at a more disaggregate
level (John 1999, p. 24) e.g. father-son, father-daughter or sibling
relationships.
First of all, the dynamic nature of the inter-relationships between power,
identity and gender roles was demonstrated via a variety of gate-keeping
experiences. Parents adopted often contrasting roles in the process of
negotiating cultural boundaries, identifiable with Ward and Kennedys
(1993) socio-cultural acculturation outcomes. Family narratives of fathers
stories emphasised masculine qualities of duty, self-respect and hard work
combined with the need to adapt to British white society (Hastings 2000;
Lindridge and Dhillon 2005) for both sons and daughters. In contrast,

mothers stories emphasised their central role in transmitting culturally
appropriate values to the family. There were regular power struggles (e.g.
language; media; consumption) in the family between mothers and fathers;
and between parents and children.
Secondly, our study starts to address the gap in research on gender roles
within the family (Gentry, Commuri and Jun 2003). Gender roles were often
associated with different aspects of gate-keeping in negotiating boundaries,
reflecting issues of cultural conflict, creativity, democratisation,
disagreement, innovation, internal or external industrialisation and
modernisation (Oyserman 1993; Rohner 1984). Our participants noted how
their fathers, and more often their brothers, deliberately challenged their
families cultural norms on their daughters behalf. These families witnessed
a continuous process of negotiation around culturally determined roles, with
the mother playing a central role as the locus ofmeaning and
relationships (Stacey 1998, p. 6) within the family.
There was evidence that sex and gender should not be automatically
assumed to map neatly on to each other (Fischer and Arnold 1994) in terms
of masculine and feminine behaviours. The stories showed how actively
fathers encouraged their daughters to embrace the opportunities offered by
their new societal setting, most noticeably in terms of entering higher
education and the world of professional work. Fathers were thus important
influences in widening their daughters horizons beyond the traditional
domestic world. Marketing managers need to recognise that males and
females cannot be neatly equated to masculine and feminine sets of
behaviours respectively; and that therefore males and females are not neat
homogeneous groups in terms of masculinity and femininity. This would
influence, for instance, the types of marketing messages to be directed at
these groups across a range of products and services.
Thirdly, diasporic families proved to be particularly valuable sites for
examining the family as part of a social system (Commuri and Gentry 2000,
p. 2) because the importance of the community and social networks emerged
clearly in these families stories. Marketing managers have always
understood the important role of social influences in consumer decision-
making, and particularly the impact of reference groups on consumer choice.
This study showed how the social influence of larger and more disparate
groups (e.g. communities and networks) exerted significant influence on
consumption choices in cultural contexts. Managers developing marketing
positioning strategies based on symbolic consumption should be able to
leverage some of these wider social influences in building marketing
messages around their products and services.
Fourthly, diasporic family stories contributed to our understanding of
the factors which make a familys interpersonal relations cultur[ally]-

embedded (Commuri and Gentry 2000, p. 23). This links partly with the
point above about the key role of communities and social networks as
factors in supporting or restraining responses to cultural change. In addition,
family histories, memories and experiences are central factors in the cultural
embedding of families interpersonal relationships, for instance fathers
heroic stories of struggle and survival, leading to lessons about the
importance of adjusting to the new society. Mothers were embedded in
Indian collectivist cultural values, and exerted their influence to pass on
Indian cultural values to their daughters, who in time would be mothers of
their own families. For marketing managers messages about their products
and services could usefully draw on the fathers heroic tales e.g. products
and services which promote enhanced access to wider opportunities. In
contrast, mothers stories as protectors of cultural values could be linked to
campaigns around key aspects of cultural consumption such as food and
clothing, drawing on reinforcing links to past experiences and important
cultural values (e.g. promoting family life via preparation of meals).
Although our findings are limited to Indian families living in Britain, we
would expect that similar findings would also be relevant to other minority
families in different societies.
Finally using daughters stories allowed us some insights into the family
unit at a more disaggregate level (John 1999, p. 24). There were reports of
father-daughter, mother-daughter, father-son and sibling interchanges across
a range of contexts which impact on families lived experiences of gender
and culture. Earlier research (Cotte and Wood 2004) has indicated the
potentially important role played by siblings in innovative consumer
behaviour. Our study showed the important role of sons as bridges for their
sisters into the some of the consumption activities of the wider society (e.g.
staying out later; drinking; going out socialising). We also saw the important
collaborative role played by fathers and sons in challenging and breaking
down some of the culturally-embedded rules of gender-appropriate
behaviour for their daughters.
This provides important evidence for problematising many of the taken-
for-granted assumptions which managers make when marketing to families.
Consumption within families represents an important site for enacting a
range of consumer roles (e.g. information seeker; decision-maker; product
champion; product or market maven) and these vary by consumption
context so that the younger generation represents the experts in some areas
(e.g. consumption of higher education) and thus we see the role of reverse
socialisation (Ekstrom 1995) as young adults educate their parents and
grandparents generations about products and services. At the same time, we
saw important, if fleeting, insights into the role of sibling cooperation and
collaboration in relation to consumption behaviours. Little work has been

undertaken on interactions between siblings (e.g. Cotte and Wood 2004), and
our study indicates that this is an important source of influence which
marketing managers could usefully access in accessing different parts of the
family decision-making unit.

Limitations

It is important to acknowledge the limitations of our study. First of all,
although our participants were drawn from a variety of socio-economic
backgrounds and social classes, they were all university students. This means
that our findings relate to just one subgroup of Indian daughters, those
whose families were prepared to support their aspirations to higher
education. All our participants families shared a belief in the importance of
education for their daughters. Our participants families, therefore,
represented a section of the Indian community in Britain where varying
levels of assimilation appeared to be actively encouraged. However, drawing
informants exclusively from university students ultimately limits our results
to similar Indian families living in Britain, who are prepared to support
female higher education. The importance of extending research more widely
to other groups of young adult Indian women who are not in higher
education is supported by earlier studies. Bhopal (1997) found, for instance,
significant cultural differences between South Asian womens behaviours in
Britain when the level of academic attainment is taken into account. In
particular she found that those women with a university degree were more
likely to demonstrate cultural behaviours aligned with wider British society;
whilst non graduates tended to be less assimilated.
Secondly, we only talked to a small group of respondents. There is
considerable scope for widening the range of participants in terms of social
class, socio-economic standing, level of education, ethnicity, geographical
origin within the Indian subcontinent and religion; and in particular to
examine the potential impact of the intersection of social class and religion on
daughters stories. Religious identity could be a particularly rich source of
insights into different types of gate-keeping in relation to gender and
consumption. As we only talked to a small group of young women it was
difficult to draw verifiable distinctions amongst the different religious
groups (Hindu, Sikh and Muslim). Our participants families largely
reflected similar attitudes to religion in terms of level of religiosity level.
However subtle differences were observable across the religious categories,
but it is difficult to make too much of these because of the limited sample
size. Our research, for example, indicated differences regarding socialisation
and food production. The intersection between religion, social class and
socio-economic status is a largely untapped research area, and could provide

valuable and much more nuanced insights into the role of parental gate-
keeping across a range of different family settings (e.g. intra- and inter-group
comparison of Indian working-class and middle class daughters experiences
from a range of ethnic and religious backgrounds).
Thirdly, we also only talked to daughters and did not capture the
independent voices of all the family members (though we heard many voices
via the daughters stories). Talking to other family members would provide
an opportunity to gain more detailed and richer pictures of the families
experiences from a variety of gendered and generational perspectives.
Finally, family lives are not static and continue to adapt, grow and change
over time. We have only been able to capture a few scenes from the family
histories and stories of everyday life. A longitudinal approach would allow
access to the evolution of family influence processes and gendered
behaviours.

Conclusion

Indians living in Britain are an example of a diasporic group which is
involved in the constant process of renegotiating between past and present,
modernity and traditions (Luke 1996). Our participants families reflected
Pellows (1996) earlier description of a unit that allows its members to
negotiate wider society and our study extends our knowledge of how
diasporic families undertake this process across the intersections of culture,
gender and consumption. In their stories of everyday family life the
daughters identified the polarisation of parental positions over a number of
key issues, notably language, media and consumption. By identifying the
different cultural and gendered gate-keeping roles undertaken by Indian
parents, we located mothers as the embodiment and holder of Indian cultural
values, whilst viewing fathers as acculturation or change agents. We used the
site of diasporic families to examine issues which confront all families which
move away from their familiar environments in an increasingly globalised
world: i.e. understanding and (re)negotiating assumptions about gender,
culture and consumption in different and unfamiliar societal settings.

Acknowledgement

Our sincere thanks to the two reviewers and the editors for their very helpful
and insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.


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About the Authors

Dr Andrew M. Lindridge is Senior Lecturer in Marketing in the Department
of Marketing at the Open University Business School. He is a graduate of
Sheffield Hallam University where he completed his Bachelors degree and
Sunderland University where he achieved his teaching status qualifications.
His doctoral research at Warwick Business School reviewed the relationship
between culture and the buying process from an acculturation perspective.
His research interests represent a continuation of his examination of the
tensions which arise from amongst acculturation, culture and consumption;
and have recently broadened to include research on black identity amongst
Afro-Caribbean youths living in Britain; wedding dowries in India as a
medium for culturally-laden conspicuous consumption; plastic surgery and
consumption of the body as a metaphor for modernisation in China; and the
role of consumption in culturally marginalised South Asian Muslim and Sikh
communities in the U.K. His work has appeared in refereed journals
including Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of Consumer Marketing
and Journal of Product and Brand Management. He has presented papers at a
number of international conferences including the Association for Consumer
Research (e.g. Advances in Consumer Research) and the European Marketing
Academy (EMAC). He is also a founding member of Culture Doctors
(www.culturedoctors), an organisational consultancy specialising in culture
and organisations.

Professor Margaret K. Hogg holds the Chair of Consumer Behaviour and
Marketing in the Department of Marketing at Lancaster University
Management School. Before joining LUMS in May 2004, she was Reader in
Consumer Behaviour at Manchester School of Management, UMIST. She
read Politics and Modern History at Edinburgh University, followed by
postgraduate studies in history at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and then
by an MA in Business Analysis at Lancaster University. She spent six years
working in Marketing with K Shoes, Kendal. She completed her part-time
PhD. at Manchester Business School in Consumer Behaviour and Retailing,
whilst lecturing at University College Salford. She was the joint winner of the
1999/2000 UMIST Millenium Prize for Teaching Excellence; and joint winner
of an UMIST/University of Manchester award for Innovation in the

Curriculum in 2002. Her research interests are around the issues of identity,
self and consumption within consumer behaviour. Her work has appeared in
refereed journals including the Consumption, Markets and Culture, Journal of
Marketing Management; the European Journal of Marketing and the International
Journal of Advertising. She edited six volumes of papers on Consumer
Behaviour in the Sage Major Works series (2005 & 2006); and along with
Michael Solomon, Gary Bamossy and Soren Askegaard she is one of the co-
authors of the 3
rd
European Edition of Consumer Behaviour (2006). She has
presented papers at a number of international conferences including
European Marketing Academy (EMAC) and U.S. meetings of the Association
for Consumer Research (e.g. Advances in Consumer Research); the Society for
Consumer Psychology; and AMA Marketing and Public Policy.

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Journal of Marketing Management, 2006, 22, 979-1008

ISSN1472-1376/2006/9-10/00979 + 29 Westburn Publishers Ltd.

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