Based on empirical research in India, this book presents a post-colonial feminist analysis of subjectivities available to Muslim girls and the ways in which they are inhabited and negotiated. Examining government education policies together with the narratives of teachers and parents, the author explores the manner in which gender, class, ethnicity and religion intersect both to confer certain subjectivities and to challenge or reinforce the conferred subjectivities. A study of the imposition of subjectivities that label Muslim girls as economically subordinate and culturally different, Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India analyses Muslim girls’ reconstructions of self through a combination of reflexivity, resilience and agency, and conformity. Drawing on the thought of Pierre Bourdieu and Nancy Fraser, this volume offers an original contribution to the study of gendered minorities, institutions and relationships in post-colonial contexts, and an alternative to identitarian politics or cultural explanations of Muslim women’s educational deprivation in India. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and gender studies with interests in education, class, religion and identity.

Decolonising Gender in South Asia is the first full-length compilation of cutting-edge research on the challenging debates around decolonial thought and gender studies in South Asia. The book elaborates on various ways of thinking about gender outside the epistemic frame of coloniality/modernity that is bound to the European colonial project. Following Walter Mignolo, the book calls for epistemic disobedience using border thinking as the necessary condition for thinking decolonially. Borders in this case are conceptualised not just as geographical borders of nation states, they also signify the borders of modern/colonial world, epistemic and ontological orders that the gendered and racialised populations of ex-colonies inhabit. Dwelling, thinking and writing from these borders create conditions of epistemic disobedience to coloniality/modernity discourses of the West. The contributors to this collection, all ethnic minority women from South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, write from and about these borders that challenge the colonial universality of thinking about gender. They are writing from, and with, subalternised racial/ethnic/sexual spaces and bodies located geographically in South Asia and South Asian diasporic contexts. In this way, when coloniality/modernity is shaping universalist understandings of gender, we are able to use a broader canon of thought to produce a more pluriversal understanding of the world. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Third World Thematics.

Reframing Drag provides a critical survey of French and Anglo-American queer and feminist theorizations of drag performance, placing these approaches in a dialogue with contemporary drag practice and the representation of drag in three literary texts. Challenging pervasive assumptions circulating in existing queer and feminist analyses of drag performance, the author identifi es and questions three recurring ideas which have shaped the landscape of drag research: the argument that drag performances either uphold or subvert oppressive gender norms, the assumption that drag involves performing as the ‘opposite sex’, and the belief that drag can shed light on gender performativity. Informed by a range of gender and queer theory, this work contends that an intersectional, transfeminist approach to drag performance can provide richer, more nuanced understandings of drag and, unlike the ‘opposite sex’ narrative, acknowledges the gender diversity at work in current drag scenes.

This book reveals how categories of gender, class, culture and religion are modes of power which inform hierarchies of social locations and people’s sense of belonging within these spaces and temporalities. It offers an alternative and innovative theoretical framework - new womanhood - for studying middle-class, urban, educated, professional women in South Asia. The book places respectable femininity at the centre of the construction and performance of new womanhood in Bangladesh: a complex and heterogeneous construction of womanhood in relation to women’s negotiations with public and private sphere roles and cultural norms of female propriety. It establishes new women as part of the neoliberal middle class as they construct their class identity as a status group, claiming inter-class and intra-class distinction from other women. It also explains how new womanhood is legitimized by alternative and multiple practices of respectability, varying according to women’s age, stage of life, profession, household setting and experience of living in Western countries. Finally, as new women forge alternative forms of respectability, theirs is not a straightforward abandonment of old structures of respectability; rather they substitute, conceal or legitimize particular practices of respectability in particular fields. While these new women’s gains are vested in the self, rather than a wider feminist politics, they have the potential to positively influence the terrain of possibilities for other women. Finally, through a study of cosmopolitan third world women who are part of a new and potentially powerful social group who occupy a privileged position in the society they live in, the book critiques Western feminist writing and challenges binary social construction of the ‘Muslim woman’ either as victims of patriarchal culture and religion or as a danger to Western liberalism, developing an understanding of cosmopolitan Muslim women’s classed gender identity as a struggle against classifications in the neoliberal times. It is the first book-length project of its kind to provide an understanding of the concept of new women in the Global South, which will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, gender studies, feminist theory, postcolonialism, inequality studies, cultural theory, development studies and South Asian Studies.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429467608, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. While the Nordic countries are listed at the top in most international rankings of gender equality and citizens’ feelings of security, studies on the prevalence of sexual victimisation present a different picture, suggesting that the very countries that have invested much in establishing gender equality actually see a high prevalence of sexual violence. This book sheds light on the phenomenon and construction of rape and other forms of sexual violence within the Nordic region, exploring the ways in which rape and sexual violence are dealt with through criminal law and considering governmental policies aimed at combatting it, with a special focus on legal regulations and developments. Thematically organised, it offers new research on perpetrators, victimhood, criminal justice and prevention. Multi-disciplinary in approach, it brings together the latest work from a range of scholars to offer insights into the situation in the five Nordic countries, asking how and why rape and other forms of sexual violence occur, whilst also addressing the timely issues of online sexual cultures, BDSM and the grey areas of sexual offences. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, criminology and law with interests in gender and sexual violence.

This expansive, lively introduction charts the connections between international youth cultures and the development of global media and communication. From 1950s drive-ins and jukeboxes to contemporary social media, the book examines modern youth cultures in their social, economic, and political contexts. Exploring the rise of young people as a distinct media market, the book examines the relation of youth to modern consumerism, marketing, and digital technologies. The chapters are packed with analysis of media representations of youth, debates about the media’s 'effects' on young audiences, and young people’s use of the media to elaborate identities and negotiate social relationships. Drawing on a wealth of international examples, the book explores the impact of globalisation and new media technologies on youth cultures around the world. Assessing a profusion of worldwide research, the book shows how modern youth cultures can only be understood as part of an international web of connections, exchanges, and experiences. With an ideal balance between detailed examples and engaging analysis, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in youth cultures and the modern media.

This book, based on extensive, original research, details the changing lives of youth living in slum communities (bustees) in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Using young people’s own photos, art and narratives, the book explores how Muslim girls and young women are contributing to, and impacted by, changing youth culture in India. We are invited into the risky world of mixed-sex dance taking place in clandestine spaces in the slums. We join young people on their journeys to find premarital romance and witness their strategic and savvy risk taking when participating in transgressive aspects of consumer culture. The book reveals how social changes in India, including greater education and employment opportunities, as well as powerful middle class Muslim reform discourses, are impacting youth the very local level. More than just fantasy we see that Bollywood is an important role model which young people consult. By carefully negotiating risks and performing multiple identities inspired by modernity, globalization and, most of all, Bollywood culture, young people actively participate in a changing India and disrupt dominant discourses about slum youth as poor victims who are excluded from social change.