Mainstreaming Third-Gender Healers: The Changing Perceptions of South Asian Hijras

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Jagadish
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Gender Group ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
British Rule ◽  
False Identity ◽  
Third Gender

Mainstreaming is the act of bringing public light to a population or issue, but it can have a deleterious impact on the individuals being discussed. Hijras comprise a third-gender group that has long had cultural and religious significance within South Asian societies. Described as being neither male nor female, hijras were once called upon for their religious powers to bless and curse. However, after the British rule and in the wake of more-recent media attention, the hijra identity has been scrutinized under a harsh Western gaze. It forces non-Western populations to be viewed in terms of binaries, such as either male or female, and it classifies them by inapplicable Western terms. For example, categorizing a hijra as transgendered obfuscates the cultural significance that the term hijra conveys within their societies. Furthermore, media representations of hijras cause consumers to view themselves as more natural, while hijras become objectified as occupying a false identity. This has caused them to be pigeonholed within the very societies that once legitimated their existence and respected them for their powers. With their cultural practices being seen as outmoded, and their differences from Western people be- ing pointed out in the news and on television, hijras have faced significant discrimination and ridicule. After providing a discussion of relevant Western and non-Western concepts, I seek to describe hijras and the effects of mainstreaming on their lives. Finally, I offer a critique of cur- rent research on this population and provide solutions to improve their plight.

Creating a Cultural Repertoire Based on Texts

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 132-153
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Bahl
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Manuscript Transmission ◽  
History Of

AbstractThe early modern South Asian sultanate of Bijapur (9/15 th–11/17 th c.) represented a rich centre for the transmission of manuscripts by both the court and local Sufi communities. Thus far, Richard Eaton has mainly concentrated on prosopographical sources to write a social history of the Sufis of Bijapur. However, Arabic manuscripts as they survive in the Royal Library of Bijapur can provide a documentary perspective that testifies to the Deccan’s transregional connections with the wider Western Indian Ocean and the cultural practices transacted by Sufis in Bijapur. In this article, I focus on Sayyid Zayn ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Muqaybil’s (d. 1130/1718) manuscripts, transcribed during his travels from Yemen to Bijapur during the second half of the 17th century. I study the paratextual profile of these manuscripts to advance an argument on modalities of manuscript transmission through the transregional scholarly and Sufi networks of Bijapur. Thus, this study will exemplify the socio-cultural significance of manuscript circulation in the context of the early modern Deccan.

The Islamic Frontier in Southwest India: The Shahīd as a Cultural Ideal among the Mappillas of Malabar

1977 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen F. Dale
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Unique Feature ◽  
Satisfactory Explanation ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Cultural Ideal ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Southwest India

The only really unique feature of the Mappilla outbreaks which occurred in Malabar District during the period of British rule was that each attack was conducted as a kind of suicidal jihād, in which the Mappillas involved intentionally sought to become shahīds or martyrs for the faith. No other South Asian Muslims who took part in protest movements to achieve goals similar to those which underlay the Mappilla attacks resorted to suicidal jihāds as a means of coercion. Yet no satisfactory explanation has ever been given to account for the Mappillas' peculiar militancy. Modern scholars have generally ignored the question, while the few British officials who tried to answer it usually argued, or implicitly suggested, that the attacks represented the inherent fanaticism of Islam. This explanation is, of course, vitiated by the very uniqueness of the Mappillas' suicidal ritual.

scholarly journals Islamic Thought in the South Asian Subcontinent

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
Zafar I. Ansari
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Significant Interest ◽  
Revival Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

The International Institute of Islamic Thought-Islamabad, the IslamicResearch Institute, and the International Islamic University, Islamabad,are conducting ongoing seminars on the history of Islamic thought ineighteenth-century South Asia. What follows is a report of some activitiesand decisions taken to date.Recent studies of Islamic thought have generally attributed the rise ofMuslim reform and revival movements, as well as the intellectual activitiesundertaken during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to theimpact of Europe and the influence of its academic, social, political, andtechnological advancement. This raises the following question: If theMuslim world had not come into contact with Europe, would it haveremained a totally unchanged and unchanging society? In order to answerthis question, it is essential to:1. Study and examine how Muslim thinkers analyzed their societyin the precolonial period2. Explore whether there was any dissatisfaction with the statusquo among Muslims;3. Detemine whether there were any trends of reform, revival,ijtihad or whether there was any significant interest in philosophyand rational sciences. Was there any interest in reinterpretingIslamic teachings in order to meet the challenges ofmodernity in general and of the western intellectual experiencein particular;4. Study whether the foundations of the political movements, religiousorganizations, and sects that arose in the subcontinent (i.e.,Ahl-i Hadith, Deobandi, and Barelawi) were laid on the emergentattitudes of opposition and resistance to British rule or whethertheir origins can be traced in the pre-British period; and5. Investigate principles and concepts (i.e., bid’ah, taqlid, ijtihad,dar al harb, jihad, and hijrah) used by Muslim thinkers for totalacceptance, rejection, or adaptation of political, social, and religiousideas and practices and of modern science and technology.How were these developed, refiied, restated, or reconsh-ucted? ...

scholarly journals Three South Asian immigrant fathers' experiences of child welfare in the Greater Toronto area (GTA)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Boiragi
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Asian Immigrant ◽  
Greater Toronto Area ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
South Asian Immigrant

The research study explores the child welfare system experiences of South Asian immigrant fathers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The study provides an overview of the literature related to the child welfare system, its dominant cultural practices, and how interventions impact South Asian immigrant fathers. This study uses Anti-Oppressive Practice Theory (AOP) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) as its theoretical framework to understand the fathers’ experiences by analyzing in-depth interviews of the South Asian immigrant fathers who shared their lived experiences with the child welfare system. This study’s focus is to give voice and make visible the experiences of these fathers, who feel disappointed, misunderstood, and alienated. Key words: Child welfare, maltreatment and neglect, racialized families South Asian immigrant fathers, settlement, integration

scholarly journals Sandwiches with Ham and Cheese, Vita Juice and Music from Gramophone Records: Celebrations of Children's Birthdays in Belgrade during The Period of Socialism

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Krel ◽  
◽  
Jadranka Đorđević Crnobrnja ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Parental Affection ◽  
Kinship Structure ◽  
Empirical Material

The paper presents the results of our research on the social and cultural practices of celebrating children’s birthdays in Belgrade, the capital of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Children’s birthday parties are examined as a social construct with functions which are developed and modified according to their social and cultural significance. The research on this cultural and social phenomenon is based on the analysis and interpretation of the narratives (empirical material) of our interlocutors. The chronological frame extends from 1945 until 1991, i.e. over the period of the socialist social system. Since the majority of our interlocutors spoke about the way birthday parties were celebrated in the 70s and the 80s, i.e. at the time of their childhood, the research is focused on that period of time. In Yugoslav and Serbian socialist society this was a social and cultural practice with multiple functions: it served as a substitute for the religious customs related to childbirth and the baptizing of children; it homogenized the family and kinship structure; it was a channel for exteriorizing parental affection towards the children; side by side with the transformation into the consumerist society it became the instrument for creating and consolidating the complex net of social relationships which informed the broader social environment about the level of financial and social power of the organizers.

Crime Dramas as Social Science Fiction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wakeman
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Cultural Criminology ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Crime Dramas ◽  
Social Science Fiction ◽  
Television Medium

Popular culture has always displayed a fascination with topics of criminological significance. Crime, deviance, and the agencies of their control have long been a staple concern of multiple entertainment industries, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in television. From classic serialized “whodunits,” to the countless police procedurals, right up to CSI and other investigative shows, the notions of good and bad, law and order, justice and retribution (to name but a few) have never been far away from television screens across the globe. However, in recent years, the quality—along with the availability—of television shows has undergone something of a transformation. From the somewhat kitsch roots of the genre, TV crime dramas such as The Sopranos, The Wire, and Boardwalk Empire are now widely recognized as existing at the very high end of cultural significance. Put simply, these shows and others like them have moved on—they currently demonstrate a standard of production and artistic merit that their forerunners simply could not. There are good reasons why the television medium transformation occurred how and when it did, yet they are not of great concern here. What does matter is the fact that, as the standard of TV crime dramas has improved, so too has the level of attention they have received from criminologists, sociologists, and other cultural theorists interested in crime and deviance. The evolution of criminology’s relationship with media representations has—just like the representations themselves—moved at an increased pace of late. The case has been made by some scholars that the days in which representations could be understood as existing somehow separately from peoples’ social worlds are now long gone; that the line between representation and reality is now irrecoverably blurred. As such, and crucially here, this has come to mean that representations can—and indeed should—be treated as sites of knowledge and meaning in and of themselves. That is, some crime dramas are now better understood as examples of social science fiction than they are as mere television shows. The results of these concomitant developments in both the standard of broadcast television and the attention it receives from criminologists have been significant for the broader field of cultural criminology. This is primarily the case because of the ways in which the study of crime dramas can free criminology from some of its intellectual constraints. That is, the study of crime dramas as social science fiction can take intellectual inquiries in directions that—for any one of a multitude of reasons—other forms of criminological investigation do not (or cannot) go. This is not to say that representations constitute a strictly alternative understanding of crime per se (and it is certainly not to say that they constitute a superior one), but rather that they should be understood as offering complementary knowledge of criminological subjects; and moreover, and importantly here, they have the realistic capacity to reshape and redirect on-going criminological debates in new and innovative ways.

Digital Divide

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alka Rai
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Emerging Trends

Technological advancement and rapid expansion of internet services have resulted in making people digitally literate. This paper attempts to take an in-depth look at the data of internet users in South Asia with a precise focus on gender perspective. South Asian communities enjoy relishing modern technologies with traditional socio-cultural practices; in some sections, women still do not get equal status and rarely participate in the decision-making processes even at the household level. Therefore, it would be noteworthy to identify whether technological expansion has helped in minimising the existing gender gap in the region or it has worked adversely! This paper is based on the secondary data and relevant literature available in the public domain. Data of the five South Asian countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—have been analyzed here. The paper has reflected the existing scenario and emerging trends in the current digital world..

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