Table of Contents

South Asian Feminisms: Contemporary Interventions / Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose 1
I. Feminism, Religion, and the Secular
From Shah Bano to Kausar Bano: Contextualizing the "Muslim Woman" within a Communalized Polity / Flavia Agnes 33
Global Discourses, Situated Traditions, and Muslim Women's Agency in Pakistan / Amina Jamal 54
Martial Tales, Right-Wing Hindu Women, and "History Telling" in the Bombay Slums / Atreyee Sen 75
II. Feminism, Labor, and Globalization
Of Moments, Not Monuments: Feminism and Labor Activism in Postnational Sri Lanka / Sonali Perera 97
Feminism, Migration, and Labor: Movement Building in a Globalized World / Anannya Bhattacharjee 117
III. Feminism, War, Peace
Uncomfortable Alliances: Women, Peace, and Security in Sri Lanka / Vasuki Nesiah 139
Feminist Politics and Maternalist Agonism / Malathi de Alwis 162
Witnessing as Feminist Intervention in India-Administered Kashmir / Angana P. Chatterji 181
IV. Feminism, Figuration, and the Politics of Reading and Writing
Transnational Politics of Reading and the (Un)making of Taslima Nasreen / Lamia Karim 205
At the Intersection of Gender and Caste: Rescripting Rape in Dalit Feminist Narratives / Laura Brueck 224
Subject to Sex: A Small History of the Gomantak Maratha Samaj / Anjali Arondekar 244
V. Feminism, Sex Work, and the Politics of Sexuality
Keeping Sexuality on the Agenda: The Sex Workers' Movement in Bangladesh / Firdous Azim 267
Politicizing Political Society: Mobilization among Sex Workers in Sonagachi, India / Toorjo Ghose 285
Queering Approaches to Sex, Gender, and Labor in India: Examining Paths to Sex Worker Unionism / Ashwini Sukthankar 306
VI. Feminist Crisis and Futures
Hecklers to Power? The Waning of Liberal Rights and Challenges to Feminism in India / Ratna Kapur 333
A Global Perspective on Gender: What's South Asia Got to Do with It? / Mrinalini Sinha 356
Bibliography 375
Contributors 407
Index 411

Promotional Information

This collection intervenes in key areas of feminist scholarship and activism in contemporary South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, while asking how this investigation might enrich feminist theorizing and practice globally. How should pressing concerns of this moment - secularism and religious identity, reconfigurations of the nation-state in relationship to globalization, or new assertions of gender and sexual identity - reshape feminism? The contributors are activists and in academia, or both, and they emphasize that in South Asia it is not possible to imagine that one has entered a post-feminist age.

About the Author

Ania Loomba is the Catherine Bryson Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is affiliated with the departments of Comparative Literature, South Asian Studies, Women’s Studies, and Asian-American Studies.

Ritty A. Lukose is Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Reviews

"South Asian Feminisms grapples fearlessly with the most challenging questions of our time. What is the work of feminism in an age of accelerating state-sponsored violence? How do women resist the depredations of national and global security regimes? How has the combination of rights claims and international development machinery compromised feminist practice? When, where and under what conditions has the rule of law failed women and consolidated new forms of gendered injustice? How to refuse liberal-colonial models yet attend to the historical legacies of imperialism both empirically and methodologically? What is the role of the nation-state in subcontinental postcolonial feminist politics? What, indeed, is the geopolitical remit of 'South Asian feminisms,' whether theoretical or practical? Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose have assembled a formidable set of interlocutors whose interdisciplinary breadth is matched by their keen analyses, their graphic examples and their categorical refusal of easy diagnoses. Put down your books and get up from your desks: this is a call to action - in the world, now, today." Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign "While most books about feminism in South Asia are country-specific, this collection has a genuinely regional focus. Essays explicitly address feminist activism and concerns in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Given the pioneering nature of South Asian feminist politics and scholarship, there is considerable interest in new work that spans the region. South Asian Feminisms takes on contemporary themes - such as labor, sexuality, and religion and secularism - that resonate across the region and beyond." Mary John, author of Discrepant Dislocations: Feminism, Theory, and Postcolonial Histories