Being Queer Feminists in Delhi: Narratives of (non)Belonging
Keywords:
queer-feminist activisms/activist spaces, Delhi, emotionality, (non)belonging
Abstract
The ground of urban queer activisms in India is contested, shifting and informed by boundaries of class, caste, and location. Within that, queer feminist activism has a long journey, in connection with women’s rights groups, feminist collectives and organizations, and queer/LBT/LGBT/trans*collectives and organizations. Against this backdrop, the article focuses on aspects of being queer feminist academic/activists in Delhi, as a way to include the lens of emotionalities in a discussion of urban queer activisms and activist spaces. With Rituparna (queer feminist activist) I, (academic-activist) reflect on our emotionalities through the question of (non)belonging. The lens of (non)belonging is used as an entry point into emerging discussions around activisms, emotions and urban spaces in the everyday. The paper argues that an accounting of (non)belonging in a theorization of urban queer activisms may help to understand how the doing of activisms is tied up with the senses and materialities of deeply gendered spaces that go into the production of the queer feminist subject.
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Bacchetta, P. (2002) Rescaling transnational “queerdom”: Lesbian and “lesbian” identitary-positionalities in Delhi in the 1980s. Antipode, 34 (5), 947-973,
Banerjea, N. (2019) A Commentary On ‘Homopopulism’. Swakanthe. June 2019. Sappho for Equality.
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Chatterjee, S. (2018) Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects. London and New York: Routledge.
Dave, N. (2012) Queer activism in India: A story in the Anthropology of Ethics. Durham: Duke University Press.
Fish, J., Almack, K. and King, A. (2018) It’s all right now? Re-thinking queer activism for the 21st century. The Sociological Review, 66 (6), 1194–1208.
Johnston, L. (2017) Gender and sexuality II: Activism. Progress in Human Geography. 41 (5), 648-656.
Kandiyoti, D. (Eds.) (1991) Women, Islam and the State. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kapur, R. (1999) ‘A love song to our mongrel selves’: Hybridity, sexuality and the law. Social and Legal Studies. 8 (3), 353-368.
Khanna, A. (2016) Sexualness. New Delhi: New Text.
Menon, N. (2009) Sexuality, caste, governmentality: Contests over “Gender” in India. Feminist Review, 91. 94-112.
Mullally, S. (2004) Feminism and multicultural dilemmas in India: Revisiting the Shah Bano case. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 24(4), 671-692.
Munt, S. (2013) Queer sociality. In Feenan, D. (Ed.) Exploring the 'Socio' of Socio-legal Studies. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 228-250.
Narrain, A and Bhan, G. (2005) Because I have a Voice: Queer Politics in India. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Nazariya https://nazariyaqfrg.wordpress.com (last accessed 23rd October, 2019)
Niranjana, T. (1998) Feminism and translation in India: contexts, politics, futures. Cultural Dynamics, 10(2), 133-146.
Pathak, Z., and Rajan, R. S. (1989) Shahbano. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 14(3), 558-582.
Raju, S. (2011) Reclaiming spaces and places: The making of gendered geography of India. In Raju, S. (Ed.) Gendered Geographies: Space and Place in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 31-59.
Ray, P. and Ghosh, N. (Eds.) (2016) Pratyaha. Everyday Lifeworlds: Dilemmas, Contestations and Negotiations. Delhi: Primus Books.
Sappho for Equality http://www.sapphokolkata.in (last accessed 23rd October, 2019)
Sen, A, Kaur, R. and Zabiliūtė, E. (2019) (En)countering sexual violence in the Indian city, Gender, Place & Culture DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2019.1612856
Shah, S. (2015) Queering Critiques of Neoliberalism in India: Urbanism and Inequality in the Era of Transnational “LGBTQ” Rights. Antipode, 47(3), 2015 ISSN 0066-4812, pp 635-651.
Sharma, A. (2008) Logics of Empowerment: Development, Gender, and Governance in Neoliberal India. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Sharma, M. (2006) Loving Women: Being Lesbian in Unprivileged India. New Delhi: Yoda Press.
Sircar, O and Jain, D. (2017) Introduction: Of powerful feelings and facile gestures. In Sircar, O. and Jain, D. (Eds.) New Intimacies, Old Desires: Law, Culture and Queer Politics in Neoliberal Times, New Delhi: Zubaan, xiii-lxi.
Sztompka, P. (2008) The focus on everyday life: A new turn in sociology. European Review, 16, 23–37.
Valentine, G. (1996) (Re)negotiating the 'heterosexual street': Lesbian productions of space. In Duncan, N. (Ed.) BodySpace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. London and New York: Routledge, 145-153.
Valentine, G. (Ed.) (2000) From Nowhere to Everywhere: Lesbian Geographies. Binghamton: Harrington Park Press.
Vanita, R. (2007) Lesbian studies and activism in India. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 11(3/4), 243–253
Wilkinson, E. (2009) The emotions least relevant to politics? Queering autonomous activism. Emotion, Space and Society, 2, 36–43.
Wilson, K., Loh, J. U., and Purewal, N. (2018) Gender, violence and the neoliberal state in India. Feminist Review, 119(1), 1-6.
Published
2020-02-03
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