Emma Dalton, Philip F. Kelly, Kabita Chakraborty

Emma Dalton and her York colleague Kabita Chakraborty discussed the preliminary findings of their research project earlier this month at YCAR in a talk titled "Fitness freaks, 'young looking' and love matches: Finding a partner on the world's largest matchmaking service shaadi.com."

Dr. Dalton is the second YCAR Research Fellow. She spent two months in Canada working with Dr. Chakraborty (Children's Studies) as part of a project that focuses on Indian matrimonial web sites.

The project considers the clash between modernity and tradition in India today, as represented on the largest matchmaking service in the world, shaadi.com. Dalton and Chakraborty are interested in what is revealed by the site about the way love, gender and marriage are constructed in contemporary Indian society. Their research explores these themes by analyzing the site's functionalities (such as the way the profiles are set up and the method of registration), promotional material on the site itself, and individual profiles.

Dr. Dalton is a lecturer of Japanese Studies at Kanda University of International Studies, Japan. She teaches subjects that explore gender, society, politics and Japanese popular culture. Her research interests include gender and politics in Japan, and gender and marriage in contemporary India. Most of her published work is concerned with the under-representation of women in Japanese parliamentary politics.