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South Asian Studies: Gender and Sexuality

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Miscellaneous Resources

Women, Gender and Religious Nationalism

This book reflects the changing modalities of Hindu nationalist organizing among women and youth. It provides unique insights into how this immensely powerful political formation has been able to preside over a massive network of grassroots organisations among most segments of Indian society and capture national power. This book contributes to the global literature on the gender dimensions of rightwing politics. By exploring why women advance the agenda of the Hindu Right despite its conservative views on gender and sexuality, the book makes an important intervention in feminist and women's studies scholarship.

Can the Subaltern Speak?

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's original essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" transformed the analysis of colonialism through an eloquent and uncompromising argument that affirmed the contemporary relevance of Marxism while using deconstructionist methods to explore the international division of labor and capitalism's "worlding" of the world. Spivak's essay hones in on the historical and ideological factors that obstruct the possibility of being heard for those who inhabit the periphery. It is a probing interrogation of what it means to have political subjectivity, to be able to access the state, and to suffer the burden of difference in a capitalist system that promises equality yet withholds it at every turn. 

Women's Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy

Including chapters on Indonesia, India, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam and international suffrage connections, Women's Suffrage in Asia engages in debates on suffrage in the region by raising issues unique to the country's case studies presented. It explains why the history of suffrage is neglected in the nationalist historiography and untangles the connections between culture, nationalism and colonialism in the context of women's struggles for suffrage.

Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis

Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism.

Contesting Feminisms: Gender and Islam in Asia

Creates a new space for hybrid feminist analysis of Asian Muslim women's lives.

Women's Movements in Asia: Feminisms and Transnational Activism

Women's Movements in Asia is a comprehensive study of women's activism across Asia. For each of the countries, the manner in which feminism changes according to cultural, political, economic and religious factors is explored. The contributors investigate how national feminisms are influenced by transnational factors, such as the women's movements in other countries, colonialism and international agencies. Each chapter also considers what Asian feminists have contributed to global theoretical debates on the woman question, the key successes and failures of the movements and what needs to be addressed in the future. 

Scholarly Resources