Understanding Transnational Sexuality in India: Globalization and Institutional Schemas

Through in-depth interviews of middle class, English-speaking, metropolitan dwelling, self-identified gay men, lesbians, and queer individuals in India, I explicate several transnational pathways through which my respondents appropriated Western notions of sexuality. Consistent with the schematic cognition view in institutional theory, I find that these pathways make the sexual schema of moral ambivalence in India intersect the sexual schemas from the North, such as, sexual exuberance, leading to a configuration of differential congruence, wherein the local and global schemas coexist in an individual’s life, but in different spheres. In addition to foregrounding the generalizability of schemas across cases, my findings suggest a demarcation of my respondents’ family lives being occupied largely by the schema of moral ambivalence on sexuality whereas parts of their non-family lives (e.g. personal, work, or non-work social) being influenced more by the Western schemas.