The lives of circumcised and veiled women: World-India interactions in discourse and narrative.
by Devangana Chatterjee
Routledge2024
Dr Debangana Chatterjee’s 2024 book builds on the established feminist IR understanding that ‘the individual is international’ (Enloe, 2014, p.343). Dr. Chatterjee constructs and overlaps between female genital mutilation/female circumcision (FGC/FC) and Islamic veiling. The book provides a detailed history of the practice and its unique expression in India, as well as the formation of a global discourse around it. kafz and insignia each. In doing so, the book explores questions of women’s subjectivity and choice, seeking to understand the interplay of global and local discourses, and how cultural practices are rendered ‘incomprehensible’ (p. 4) in the process. Trying to understand. It is the prism of universal (in this case ‘human rights’) discourse. This book arrives at a nuanced analysis of these multiple layers at play within IR.
This easy-to-follow book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter sets out the theoretical foundations of the book. The next four chapters are divided equally between analyzes of both practices, paying equal attention to the global and local levels. Chapter 2 therefore traces in depth the historical development of the international (legal/social) dialogue on what is called ‘FC/FGC’. In the next chapter, we first describe the context of the practice. kafz In India, we understand the process and the Indian public discourse surrounding it before moving on to a narrative analysis built through interviews about the practice. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the wearing of the Islamic veil. Chapter 4 describes the development of a multifaceted discourse on the practice internationally, and Chapter 5 expands on the practice. insignia The discourse surrounding this in India using interviews and focus group discussions. The final chapter begins to reconcile the findings of the previous four chapters, detailing the contribution of the study in terms of pushing the boundaries of knowledge production and IR as an academic discipline. The author presents his analysis of the understanding of ‘choice’ and ‘action’ in the following cultural practices: insignia and kafzIt highlights the need for a nuanced dialogue between international and local discourses. As such, the book is well organized and takes the reader through every step, providing ample context before moving on to detailed analysis.
Dr. Chatterjee focuses on the women’s own stories, and “women’s experiences remain at the center of the discussion” (p.13). The book utilizes extensive interviews and focus groups to obtain participants’ perspectives. It provides a rich account of the many facets of the conversation surrounding both practices, including practitioners, activists and advocates. Here, Dr. Chatterjee responds to Spivak’s (2013) call to speak out in silence. I heard. This is where her goal of bringing ‘marginalized knowledge’ (p. 5) to the fore shines.
The book’s focus on legal and sociopolitical discourse and their interactions is particularly noteworthy. As the book itself suggests, it is truly interdisciplinary and covers quite a lot of ground. For example, in the case of the Islamic veil, we try to understand its impact on education, fashion, professional growth, sports, etc. This ensures a well-rounded, multi-layered and multifaceted perspective coming from different sectors of society, national and international.
Here, the book also begins an important conversation about othering. Discussing the concepts of the ‘male’ and ‘colonial’ gazes and how they overlap, it is pointed out that “coloniality doubly marginalizes women in a situation where women’s bodies become the primary site of politics” (p. 219). We explain in detail. Thus, increasing Islamophobia and the colonial imagination of the Other combine to interact with culture/tradition to determine women’s positions and choices.
It is these strengths themselves that allow the book to develop further. A more in-depth analysis would have been interesting. how The international discourse figures prominently and emerges within or parallel to the Indian discourse. There was room for further discussion of the implications (or lack thereof) of such international discourse for Indian politics. Likewise, it would have been interesting to look more closely at where the two discourses converge or diverge, and what this means for the construction of global and regional dialogue. The conclusion begins to take steps towards this, although the chapters divided into ‘international’ and ‘regional’ levels sometimes seem to exist in isolation.
Second, the concept of ‘gaze’, which is so interestingly established in the theoretical foundation, could have been more explicitly integrated throughout each chapter. This can be discussed at various levels, including the colonial gaze, masculine gaze, national gaze, majority gaze, and contemporary Western (Oriental) gaze. Each chapter hints at this analysis throughout, but it would have been helpful to have discussed it more clearly and candidly.
Finally, there are several methodological questions that may arise in the reader’s mind. First of all, the book often mixes positivist and post-positivist language, where the vocabulary of ‘variables’ often enters what appears to be an overall interpretivist and non-causal discourse analysis study. Second, future research could complement this current research by expanding the scope to include, for example, rural women’s narratives. insignia In India. likewise, kafzCan research be enriched by incorporating the views of medical experts? Would a parallel study of Hindu veils in India help us better understand the cultural differences and particularities that this book addresses?
Overall, this book is important and timely, and a further important conversation about how we understand and view cultural practices, whether we listen to the voices of those affected by these practices, and how we judge and label practices as outsiders. opens the door to How can global discourse be synergized with local discourse? This adds to the existing literature on gender and IR, not only providing space for women’s own voices, but also identifying how global (Orientalist) discourses on cultural practices must take contextual factors into account. In doing so, the book offers a perspective on the importance of an intersectional lens when seeking to address the centrality of gender in IR. Dr Chatterjee’s simultaneous lens of zooming out and zooming in therefore provides an important case study of how women and their subjects become entangled in the interplay of global and local discourses surrounding their lives, becoming ‘sites of politics’ (p. 219 ) ).
References
Enloe, C. (2014). Bananas, Beaches and Bases. 2nd ed. University of California Press.
Spivak, GC (2013) ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in P. Williams and L. Chrisman (eds). Colonial discourse and postcolonial theory : reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 66–111.
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