In the context of the continuing dominance of delocalised Western feminist theoretical models, which allow the non-Western and not quite Western ‘others’ to either be epistemically annihilated or appropriated, it becomes crucial to look for transformative feminist theoretical tools which can eventually help break the so-called mere recognition patterns and move in the direction of transversal dialogues, mutual learning practices and volatile but effective feminist coalitions. Speaking from the position of postcolonial and postsocialist feminist others vis-a-vis the dominant Western/northern gender (...) studies mainstream, and drawing on examples from a broad range of social contexts (from the Armenian queer social movement to a recent Indian gang rape controversy), the authors of this article address the validity of two such transformative feminist tools: border thinking that operates on a more general theoretical level, and disidentification that offers a more praxial operational realisation of the border principle. (shrink)

In this article the authors1 approach material and symbolic violence through transdisciplinary readings of theoretical debates, fiction and empirical narratives. They make use of the concept of turning points which disrupt dichotomous and static categorizations of victim and survivor, and their association with passivity and agency respectively. In situations of violence, turning points represent temporality instead of timelessness, dialogism instead of monologism, multilayering rather than any fixed identity. The authors draw on the theorists Bakhtin and Certeau, whose work highlights the (...) significance of meaning-making between self and other. They analyse empirical and fictional narratives to understand the creation of dialogic spaces, a space that both subordinates and subverts. Pointing to the procedural nature of turning points within the everyday, the authors argue that women, despite the pain and trauma, are neither just a victim nor just a survivor in a violent relationship. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of ‘misrecognition’, ‘condescension’ and ‘consent and complicity’ to demonstrate how domination and violence are reproduced in everyday interactions, social practices, institutional processes and dispositions. Importantly, this constitutes symbolic violence, which removes the victim's agency and voice. Indeed, we argue that as symbolic violence is impervious, insidious and invisible, it also simultaneously legitimises and sustains other forms of violence as well. Understanding symbolic violence together with traditional discourses of violence is important because (...) it provides a richer insight into the ‘workings’ of violence, and provides new ways of conceptualising violence across a number of social fields and new strategies for intervention. Symbolic violence is a valuable tool for understanding contentious debates on the disclosure of violence, women leaving or staying in abusive relationships or returning to their abusers. While we focus only on violence against women, we recognise that the gendered nature of violence produces its own sets of vulnerabilities against men and marginalised groups, such as LGBT. The paper draws on empirical research conducted in Sweden in 2003. Sweden is an interesting case study because despite its progressive gender equality policies, there has been no marked decrease in violence towards women by men. (shrink)

For many decades now it has been maintained that Indian civilization has shown an adsence of dissent and protest. This has become so axiomatic on the Indian past that those who have occasionally questioned it have been labelled as anti-Indian. Such a view stems from a nationalistic over-simplification of Indian society as a vision of harmonious social relations in a land of plenty. Superimposed on this were the preconceptions of idealist philosophy that dissent required materialistic underpinnings, and philosophical themes of (...) materialism in Indian thought have generally received short shrift from contemporary commentators. It is only in recent years that some attempts are being made to suggest that neither materialist philosophy nor dissent were wholly marginal to Indian society. It still remains fashionable in some circles to deny the opposition between forms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the ideological traditions of the past, arguing that Indian religions were not based on dogma. Yet the history of groups identified as having a community of religious beliefs, rituals and behaviour, among Buddhists, Jainas, Vaisnavas, Saivas and Tantrics, is strewn with sectarian dogmatism which found expression not only in inter-religious but also in inter-sectarian rivalries, sometimes of a violent kind. (shrink)

Romila Thapar examines the link between time and history through the use of cyclic and linear concepts of time. While the former occurs in a cosmological context, the latter of found in familiar historical forms. The author argues for the existence of historical consciousness in early India, on the evidence of early texts.

This essay examines the link between time and history through the use of cyclic and linear concepts of time. While the former occurs in a cosmological context, the latter is found in familiar historical forms. The author argues for the existence of historical consciousness in early India, on the evidence of early texts.

Evidence for one or more loci on the human X chromosome influencing social cognition was recently presented by Skuse et al.(1). The imprinted locus is only expressed from a paternally inherited X chromosome, which means that boys do not express it because their only X chromosome comes from their mother. This raises the possibility of genetic as well as cultural influences on sex differences in behaviour and cognition. It may also offer some explanation for why boys are more vulnerable to (...) developmental disorders that affect social behaviour, such as autism. (shrink)

Respecting patients’ rights is a fundamental aspect of providing quality healthcare. The present investigation attempts to explore the awareness among patients about their rights in a coastal township in India. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 215 patients admitted to the wards of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Mangalore. Awareness among patients regarding their rights varied for various issues and ranged between 48.4 and 87.4 %. Awareness about patients’ rights was independent of gender, socio-economic and educational status. (...) Doctors were found to be the most common source of information for patient’s about their rights in the study. Doctors must conform to the relevant legislations and involve patients in all aspects of healthcare. There is a need to increase awareness among patients about their rights to ensure informed decisions and better health care services. (shrink)

Corrigendum to “Border thinking and disidentification: Postcolonial and postsocialist feminist dialogues”, by Madina Tlostanova, Redi Koobak, Suruchi Thapar-Björkert, Feminist Theory, DOI: 10.1177/1464700116645878.

Romila Thapar, The Past as Present: Forging Contemporary Identities through History, 2014, New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, pp. 329, ₹ 595, ISBN: 978-93-83064-01-4.

This letter deals with the problem of atheism and Catholicism. After mourning the loss of a Jesuit priest, the author turns to a previous issue of the paper. In that issue a prominent Jesuit administrator of the Calcutta Province of the Jesuits had praised Romila Thapar. This letter asks whether Thapar is acceptable to Catholic Christianity since she is avowedly an atheist. The Catholic priest in question did not reply and continues in his priestly office. The then editor (...) of the Herald printed this letter in totality. (shrink)

This study accounts for disparate portrayals of divine destroyer Śiva in the normative Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata as opposed to Kālidāsa’s amatory Kumārasaṃbhava and Raghuvaṃśa by contrasting the primary and secondary Sanskrit epic authors’ respective reliances on the Mānavadharmaśāstra and the Kāmasūtra. By arguing, per Richard Johnson’s postpoststructuralism, that these mythological and philosophical differences deliberately reflect those poets’ specific sociohistorical contexts, this inquiry accounts more accurately for Śiva’s classical-epic depictions than do Stella Kramrisch’s and Wendy Doniger [O’Flaherty]’s investigations informed by Claude (...) Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism and Don Handelman and David Shulman’s researches influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s poststructuralism. The present work, in revising such prevailing Indological notions as Romila Thapar’s traditional construal of the “classical,” Donald R. Davis Jr.’s anthropocentric definition of puruṣārtha (human aim), and Sheldon Pollock’s unvarying characterization of śāstras (treatises), models a historically aware approach that appreciates the interrelationship of mythological philosophy and philosophical mythology. (shrink)