ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Shailaja PaikSubscribe to Shailaja Paik

Dalit Feminist Thought

Dalit women’s experiences as epistemic spaces form the basis for a new conceptual and theoretical framework of a Dalit “womanist–humanist complex” to analyse the materiality of caste, class, gender, sexuality, local economy, and power relationships, both within and outside of the Dalit community. How do Dalits navigate awkward contingencies, tenuous histories, socio-economic contexts, political pressures, and cultural realities to negotiate with the regimes of power, carve their agency, and contribute to feminist thought, praxis, pedagogies, and politics? The myriad ways through which Dalits have consistently expanded, challenged, and revolutionised feminism, by working on different potentials, hopes, and futures, are demonstrated here.

 

‘New’ Dalit Women and Their ‘Improper’ Politics

Dalit Women: Vanguard of an Alternative Politics in India edited by S Anandhi and Karin Kapadia, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2017; pp xviii + 350, ₹995.

Amchya Jalmachi Chittarkatha (The Bioscope of Our Lives): Who Is My Ally?

This paper questions the commonly-held view by mainstream feminists and some dalit men that dalit women are somehow more "liberated" than high caste women. I argue that dalit women also face patriarchal oppression, though it has a specific quality. Under such circumstances, who is a dalit woman's ally? The essay focuses on the penumbra of debilitating circumstances, which call for a further understanding of the particular context of dalit femininity and oppressed sexuality.

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