The Centre for Policy Studies is organising a talk by Natasha Behl, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University- titled ‘Gendered Citizenship- Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India.’
Abstract
In Gendered Citizenship, Natasha Behl asks a pressing question relevant to all liberal democracies: why do the punitive effects of gender persist in spite of constitutional guarantees to the contrary?Why do we find pervasive gender-based discrimination, exclusion, and violence in India when the Indian Constitution guarantees equal rights for women?Behl offers an examination of Indian citizenship that weaves together an analysis of sexual violence law with an in-depth ethnography of the Sikh community to explore the contradictory nature of Indian democracy. Through a situated analysis of citizenship, Behl upends longstanding academic assumptions about democracy, citizenship, religion, and gender. This analysis reveals that religious spaces and practices can be sites for renegotiating democratic participation, but also uncovers how some women engage in religious community in unexpected ways to link gender equality and religious freedom as shared goals. Gendered Citizenship explains why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and identifies potential spaces and practices that can create more egalitarian relations.
About the Speaker
Natasha Behl is associate professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU).Dr. Behl completed her doctorate in political science at University of California, Los Angeles, where her training focused on race, ethnicity, politics and comparative politics.Sheexplains why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and identifies potential ways to create more egalitarian relations in liberal democracies and the discipline of political science.
Dr. Behl’s book, Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India, is published with Oxford University Press. Her research is published in leading journals like PS: Political Science and Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, Feminist Formations, and Space & Polity. She was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award at ASU where she teaches Global Feminisms, Feminist Action Research, Navigating Academia as a Raced and Gendered Space, Comparative Politics, Politics of India, and Everyday Forms of Political Resistance. She has also written for The Washington Post and Public Seminar and she has given a TEDx Talk.