ABSTRACT
This book uses communities of women as a framework for reading women’s experience, rights and aspirations in Assam and Northeast India. It explores the varying roles played by such communities in the formation of society, the emergence of a women’s public sphere and the representation of these communities in culture. The essays in the volume study a host of women’s communities including the Mahila Samiti, Jain women’s organisations, Lekhika Sanstha, lesbian communities, religious gatherings, scientific and environmental groups, women’s collaborations through cookbooks, as well as nebulous communities of victims of persecution. They examine how women’s communities are both empowering and transformational but may paradoxically also be regressive and static.
Lucid, analytical, and rich with case studies, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of gender studies, sociology, political science, history and cultural studies, particularly those interested in Northeast India.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |132 pages
Society
chapter |24 pages
‘Great Sensation in Guwahati'
chapter |24 pages
Participation in and Access to the Public ‘Sacred' Space
chapter |27 pages
Questions of Space, Autonomy and Identity
chapter |29 pages
Lesbian Women and the Politics of Community Formation
part |118 pages
Culture