This book explores contemporary issues in women’s studies, focusing on the agency of marginalised and disenfranchised within political, cultural, and social spheres. It employs feminist pedagogies to articulate the multiple intersecting histories of class, caste, race, sexuality, disability and citizenship.
Using feminist perspectives, the book challenges the hegemonic and patriarchal logic of heteronormativity by contextualizing verbal abuse, violence in the private sphere, and the tensions between women's and men's rights across the continuum of family, community, and state. The essays in this volume examine the (im)possibilities of creating violence-free, caring, and affordable living space on the one hand, and seek to understand the gendered experience of violence in the context of migration, as well as cultural and sexual labour on the other. In addition to interrogating the cultural taboos that restrict women's autonomy and rights, the essays prioritise a diverse range of voices, including those of dancers in the entertainment industry, sexual and gender minorities, urban poor populations living in slums, and disabled women. They also document and archive the academic agency of staff and students working to address injustices within higher education institutions.
Part of the Contemporary Issues in Social Science Research series, this volume will be of significant interest to scholars and researchers in gender studies, women’s studies, history, political science, sociology, social anthropology, development studies, law, media studies and South Asia studies.
Introduction Part 1: Cultures of Exclusion, Narratives of Protest 1. Sweat and Salt on Broken Skin: Examining the Culture of Silence around Sexual Harassment in Classical Indian Dance Pedagogy 2. “Tonite and Everynite”: Gender, Class and Performance in Calcutta Nightlife (1940s-1980s) 3. In Good Hands: “Mobilization” as a Collective Tool for Collective Praxis 4. Women’s Assertion and a New Space for Citizenship: Shaheen Bagh Part 2: (Im)pure Bodies, (Il)legitimate Realities 5. Outside the Frame: Disabled Women in Urban Spaces 6. Against the Odds: Gendered Politics of Labour, Infrastructure and Claim-making in Kolkata’s Poor Localities 7. Gendered Embodiment: The Everyday Lived Experiences of Transmen 8. Reproductive Empowerment and Self-care: In Context of Menstrual and Contraceptive Choices in India Part 3: Violent Institutions, Feminist Conversations 9. Contextualizing Multiculturalism and Women’s Citizenship Rights in India 10. Birangona to Muktijoddha: The Juxtaposed Burden of Victimhood, Valorisation and Agency 11. Violence, Home and Care Networks: Contemporary Feminist Explorations 12. The Invisible Violence of Words, Gesture and Silence: A Feminist Exploration of Linguistic Abuse 13. Escape from Marriages: Feminisms and Anti-Feminisms in India Part 4: Spaces of Assertion, Politics of Belonging 14. Doing Feminism: Mahatma Jotirao Phule, Supportive Practices and Higher Educational Institutions 15. Mobilising Higher Education and Hope: Gender, Stigma and Intergenerational Mobility 16. Enabling and Constraining Conditions Impacting Academic Agency to Promote Sustainable Transformation in South African and Indian universities 17. Under Conditions of Intersecting Injustices: Recognising Multifaceted Politics of Representation and Authorship in Post-colonial Academia 18. Black Decolonial Feminism is for Everyone: Feeling Our Way Towards Intersectional Antiracism on the Way to Decolonisation in Universities. Index.
Aishika Chakraborty is Professor and Director of the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, India. Nandita Banerjee Dhawan is an Associate Professor at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, India.
