India

Floating on Silent Waters: Religion, Nationalism, and Dislocated Women in Khamosh Pani

Citation:

Khan, Shahnaz. 2009. “Floating on Silent Waters: Religion, Nationalism, and Dislocated Women in Khamosh Pani.” Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 9 (2): 130–52.

Author: Shahnaz Khan

Abstract:

Drawing upon the cinematic narrative of the internationally acclaimed film Khamosh Pani, I relocate the issues it raises within a wider discussion about the gendered nature of conflict between religious communities during the chaos of the 1947 Partition of British India into India and Pakistan. I explore the ways in which state-sponsored Islam in Pakistan impacts the protagonist Ay esha and her son Salim. Further, I explore how the violence o/Partition as well as continued violence between Hindus and Muslims is remembered cinematically by Bombay cinema, the dominant cultural institution in the region. Finally, I interrogate Khamosh Pani's reception in India and speculate how it might influence the social constructions of Muslims in South Asia and elsewhere.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Religion, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, Pakistan

Year: 2009

The Violence of Memory: Renarrating Partition Violence in Shauna Singh Baldwin's What the Body Remembers

Citation:

Misri, Deepti. 2011. “The Violence of Memory: Renarrating Partition Violence in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers.” Meridians 11 (1): 1–25. doi:10.2979/meridians.11.1.1.

Author: Deepti Misri

Abstract:

This article explores how Shauna Singh Baldwin's novel What the Body Remembers builds on Partition feminist historiography in order to exhume and retell the story of family violence against women during India's Partition, intended to “save their honor” from rioting mobs. While feminist historiographies have restored Partition survivors' memories of violence to the historical archive, Baldwin's novel explicitly foregrounds the role of gendered bodies in and as the archive of communal memories of violence. I begin with Baldwin's exploration of the embodied character of Sikh subject-formation in a pre-Partition border community, and close in, like the novel itself, on a key moment of embodied violence: the cutting up and reassembling of a woman's body, whose manner of death is later reconstructed by her male family members, in the presence of a female family member. My analysis shows how the text's layering of perspectives around this body encodes a feminist hermeneutics of doubt and models a critical practice of “reading between the lines” in order to recover the violence suppressed in the text of patriarchal memory. Furthermore, I argue, the woman's dismembered, re-membered body in the text allegorizes the processes of disfigurement through which women's bodies are routinely produced as “dead metaphors” for patriarchal honor; as well as the project of remembering violence differently, which the novel itself endorses.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Hierarchies, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2011

Gender, Development and Environmental Governance: Theorizing Connections

Citation:

Arora-Jonsson, Seema. 2013. Gender, Development and Environmental Governance: Theorizing Connections. Routledge.

Author: Seema Arora-Jonsson

Abstract:

A major challenge in studies of environmental governance is dealing with the diversity of the people involved at multiple levels--villagers, development agents, policy-makers, private resource users and others--and taking seriously their aspirations, conflicts and collaborations. This book examines this challenge in two very disparate parts of our world, exploring what gender-equality, resource management and development mean in real terms for its inhabitants as well as for our environmental futures. Based on participatory research and in-depth fieldwork, Arora-Jonsson studies struggles for local forest management, the making of women's groups within them and how the women's groups became a threat to mainstream institutions. Insights from India, consistently ranked as one of the most gender-biased countries, are compared with similar situations in the ostensibly gender-equal Sweden. Arora-Jonsson also analyzes how dominant ideas about the environment, developmentand gender equality shape the spaces in which women and men take action through global discourses and grassroots activism. Questioning the conventional belief that development brings about greater gender equality and more efficient environmental management, this volume scrutinizes how environmental imaginations are key to crafting gender relations. It shows gender to be at the heart of environmental negotiations while at the same time making a case for environmental sensibilities as integral to gender relations. At the confluence of development, environmental and gender studies, the book contributes to a much-needed dialogue between these fields, proposing new futures in environmental management (WorldCat).

Annotation:

Contents:

 

  1. Introduction: Three Places and a Jigsaw World
  2. Crafting New Relations and Theorizing Connections: Gender, Development and Environmental Governance
  3. Policy Discourses and Material Places: Forests, Gender and the (Re)making of the Peripheries
  4. Environmental Politics on the Ground
  5. A Politics of the Possible: Gendered Subjectivities in Collective Organizing
  6. Micropolitics of Rural Development and Environmental Governance: Resistance, Maintenance and Outside Intervention
  7. Discordant Connections: Discourses on Gender and Grassroots Activism
  8. Development Practice and Environmental Governance: Flexible Spaces for Political Action
  9. Conclusion: Up-Close in a Jigsaw World: Guideposts from the Present

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Environment, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe Countries: India, Sweden

Year: 2013

Natural Disaster and Women’s Mental Health

Citation:

Parida, Pradeep Kumar. “Natural Disaster and Women’s Mental Health.” Social Change 45, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 256–75. doi:10.1177/0049085715574189.

Author: Pradeep Kumar Parida

Abstract:

Based on a case study in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, this article examines women’s vulnerability to the June 2013 floods in constructing mental health outcomes. By means of qualitative research and diverse vulnerability approaches such as entitlement, livelihood and political economy, the study draws attention to the initial well-being, livelihood resilience, self-protection, societal protection and social capital of women and underlines how their lack of capacity to avoid, cope with and recover from disasters increased mental health exposure to risk. To this point, women’s vulnerability and mental disorders are reciprocally related to each other. In conclusion, while physical exposure to the flood was a necessary element, it was women’s pre-existing symptoms and developmental processes that were most influential in generating mental health consequences after the disaster.

Keywords: vulnerability, mental health, natural disaster, gender inequality, Uttarakhand

Topics: Economies, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Health, Mental Health, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2015

The Gendered Nature of Disasters Women Survivors in Post-Tsunami Tamil Nadu

Citation:

Juran, Luke. “The Gendered Nature of Disasters Women Survivors in Post-Tsunami Tamil Nadu.” Indian Journal of Gender Studies 19, no. 1 (February 1, 2012): 1–29. doi:10.1177/097152151101900101.

Author: Luke Juran

Abstract:

The impacts of disasters rarely reveal themselves equally across an affected population. Rather, the extent of impact is determined by social constructs, such as religion, caste, socioeconomic status and most notably, gender, which cuts across all of these spheres. This article focuses on the variable of gender and the role it played in post-tsunami Tamil Nadu, India. In particular, gender will be discussed in relation to: mortality; access to aid and rehabilitation resources; conditions at temporary shelters; violence against women; and impacts on health. This article argues that women confront human rights gaps during ‘normal’ times and that such pre-existing inequalities are simply reified and magnified in times of disaster. These contentions are upheld by providing a theoretical review of gender and disaster, a survey of actual accounts of gender and disaster across space, and by buttressing the literature with examples from post-tsunami Tamil Nadu. The aim of this article is to analyse salient gender-based issues in a specific post-disaster context and to add to the discourse on gender and disaster writ large.

Keywords: gender and disaster, disaster rehabilitation, tsunami, Indian women and tsunamis

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Rights, Human Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2012

The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake: A Perspective on Women's Experiences

Citation:

Hamilton, Jennifer Parker, and Sarah J. Halvorson. 2007. “The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake: A Perspective on Women’s Experiences.” Mountain Research and Development 27 (4): 296–301.

Authors: Jennifer Parker Hamilton, Sarah J. Halvorson

Abstract:

The 2005 Kashmir Earthquake is illustrative of the intensity and scope associated with catastrophic earthquake disasters in mountainous regions. The experience of the immediate aftermath, relief and recovery, and community reconstruction underscores how this event impacted mountain women, particularly in their roles in rescue and relief efforts and in rebuilding households and communities. A situational analysis was undertaken in order to document and make recommendations for the significant challenges and concerns facing women earthquake survivors in 3 of the valleys most proximate to the epicenter. Earthquake planning and mitigation strategies in northern Pakistan and elsewhere need to focus on reducing women's vulnerability and increasing their resilience, while fostering feasible interventions to reduce disaster risk across the population. We propose that the main elements should include pre-disaster vulnerability assessments; the support of women's access to resources and science-based earthquake education; active roles for women in relief, rehabilitation, and rebuilding efforts; and gender training among all disaster relief and emergency services.

Topics: Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gender Balance, Gender Mainstreaming Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, Pakistan

Year: 2007

Natural Disasters and Gender Inequalities: The 2004 Tsunami and the Case of India

Citation:

Hines, Revathi I. “Natural Disasters and Gender Inequalities: The 2004 Tsunami and the Case of India.” Race, Gender & Class 14, no. 1/2 (2007): 60–8.

Author: Revathi I. Hines

Abstract:

This research examines the link between gender and natural disasters. Specifically, it studies the 2004 Tsunami, that occurred in the Indian Ocean, and the inordinate impact it had on females in India. There are two fundamental gender issues that are examined in this paper: (a) The reasons why more women than men were impacted by the 2004 tsunami, and (b) The post-tsunami challenges that were faced by women. Through the research it is observed that following the tsunami, gender concerns were overlooked and social realities were ignored. As a result, women were marginalized in the process. The absence of any concrete gender analysis at the governmental level, indicates the nonchalant attitude toward gender concerns.

Keywords: tsunami, Gender, India, natural disasters, disaster challenges, gender challenges

Topics: Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Humanitarian Assistance Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2007

Remembering Revolution: Gender, Violence, and Subjectivity in India's Naxalbari Movement

Citation:

Roy, Srila. 2012. Remembering Revolution: Gender, Violence, and Subjectivity in India's Naxalbari Movement. Oxford University Press. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/remembering-revolution-9780198081722.

Author: Srila Roy

Abstract:

This book explores the production of cultural memory in relation to women's involvement in the late 1960s' radical Naxalbari movement of West Bengal. It draws on historiographic, popular, and personal memoirs to examine the consultation of the memory of this movement principally in terms of gender, violence, and subjectivity. The author explores how memories of Naxalbari are culturally produced, received, and contested, and how they implicate the work of gendered identity at the interface of personal narratives and wider culturally mediated ones. The book is based on extensive field data, and also draws from party texts, fiction, poetry, film memoirs, and activist writing (both Bengali and English). Along with its examination of sexual violence as part of political violence, it also reflects on how women are implicated by and negotiate different types of violence. (Oxford University Press)

Keywords: social sciences, sociology, comparative & historical sociology

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Civil Society, Domestic Violence, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Sexual Violence, SV against Men, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2012

Where Women are Leaders: The SEWA Movement in India

Citation:

Rose, Kalima. 1992. Where Women Are Leaders: The SEWA Movement in India. Zed Books Ltd. 

Author: Kalima Rose

Abstract:

"Where Women are Leaders is a narrative history of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) the 40,000-strong union of India's poorest women which has increasingly become an inspiration to and living example of a new development model relevant to low-income women worldwide. SEWA's unique organizing tactics focus on the poorest and most vulnerable women in Indian society - those who are self-employed or working in the informal sector and who have been marginalized by mainstream development strategies.
 
Ela Bhatt, SEWA's founder and inspiration for two decades, and other long-standing members and organizers reveal the process of organizing for social change. Small inputs, SEWA's experience shows, can bring about significant socio-economic changes; and a strategy of combining union organizing with the formation of cooperatives, supported by childcare and health services as well as access to credit through a women's bank, can transform the lives of even the very poorest women.
 
This work traces SEWA's work from its initial organizing of women around basic wage and credit issues to its subsequence research and lobbying activists on larger development policy questions and its current national and international influence on employment and resource strategy. It integrates accounts of the exploitation, abuse and brutality unorganized women experience at the hands of the 'bosses', traders and the police, with interviews with the women responsible for the creative organizing SEWA has done; and analysis of the models SEWA has developed to serve its members both in Ahmedabad, where it first started, and elsewhere in the country." (Zed Books)

Topics: Class, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 1992

Bengal Border Revisited

Citation:

Banerjee, Paula. 2012. “Bengal Border Revisited.” Journal of Borderlands Studies 27 (1): 31–44. doi:10.1080/08865655.2012.687208.

Author: Paula Banerjee

Abstract:

This article deals with the notion of how borders have a penchant for becoming a marker of security. The moment borders become securitized the question of flows across them acquires particular importance. In the colonial period this was marked by concern over dacoits, thugees and hooligans who crossed the district border at will. In the post-colonial period concern remains over undocumented migrants and whether their arrival threatens the nation form. Against this background the article addresses the notion of flows and increasing violence at the borders, fencing as the most recent marker of such violence and how women and the evolution of their relationship to the border is shaped through the discourses of violence.

Topics: Citizenship, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Gender Analysis, Nationalism, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh, India

Year: 2012

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