{"product_id":"cookstove-chronicles-social-life-of-a-womens-technology-in-india-paperback-softback-9780816556700","title":"Cookstove Chronicles; Social Life of a Women's Technology in India (Paperback \/ softback) 9780816556700","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eCookstove Chronicles\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eSocial Life of a Women's Technology in India\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eMeena Khandelwal (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780816556700\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 26 May 2026\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e280 pages, 10 Illustrations, black and white\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.454 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e“\u003ci\u003eCookstove Chronicles\u003c\/i\u003e offers a sophisticated, nuanced, and complex argument about why women in India continue to use the chulha despite extensive development efforts encouraging them to stop. Grounded in feminist insights and critical approaches to technology and development, this book is long overdue.”—Jade S. Sasser, author of \u003ci\u003eOn Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women’s Rights in the Era of Climate Change\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eStove improvers have been designing and promoting “clean” or “efficient” biomass cookstoves in India since the 1940s and have been frustrated to find their carefully engineered stoves abandoned in trash heaps or repurposed as storage bins, while the traditional mud chulha retains a central place in the kitchen. Why do so many Indian women continue to use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves when they have other options?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on anthropological research in Rajasthan, \u003ci\u003eCookstove Chronicles\u003c\/i\u003e argues that the supposedly obsolete chulha persists because it offers women control over the tools needed to feed their families. Their continued use of old stoves alongside the new is not a failure to embrace new technologies but instead a strategy to maximize flexibility and autonomy. The chulha is neither the villain nor hero of this story. It produces particulate matter that harms people’s bodies, leaves soot on utensils and walls, and accelerates glacial melting and atmospheric warming. Yet it also depends on renewable biomass fuel and supports women’s autonomy as a local, do-it-yourself technology.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeena Khandelwal, a feminist anthropologist, describes her collaboration with engineers, archaeologists, and others. She employs critical social theory and reflections from fieldwork to bring together research from a range of fields, including history, geography, anthropology, energy and environmental studies, public health, and science and technology studies (STS). In so doing she not only demystifies multidisciplinary research but also highlights the messy reality of actual behavior.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCookstove Chronicles\u003c\/i\u003e critically examines why, despite extensive development efforts, use of the chulha persists. It offers an important new framework for looking at development, technology, environmental change, and human behavior.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Arizona Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52570058653976,"sku":"9780816556700","price":24.37,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/cookstove-chronicles-social-life-of-a-womens-technology-in-india-paperback-softback-9780816556700","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}