29526 research outputs found
Sort by
Khwaja Sira Activism and the Question of Sexual Rights
No full textBased on nine months of ethnographic research, this dissertation will provide a comprehensive picture of activism for khwaja sira rights in Lahore, and how activists approach barriers to sexual rights for the community. In 2009, a landmark ruling acknowledged khwaja sira identity as the third gender. Legislative wins since 2009 have provided khwaja sira communities with a cluster of rights. However, despite legal advancements and increased visibility of the community, the right to marriage and sexual rights in general remain controversial.While the subject of sexual rights remains unaddressed, legal recognition has enabled khwaja siras to carve out a space for themselves, especially in the realm of organizational activism. This dissertation highlights three main aspects of khwaja sira activism: Community-Based Organizations focused on HIV prevention, mainstreaming projects, and rights-based advocacy. Activist projects within these spaces create conflicted alliances between khwaja sira activists and the advocates and state representatives that they collaborate with. I trace community tensions to highlight how the realm of organizational activism expects khwaja siras to find legitimacy by disavowing sexuality and through adherence to a restricted understanding of gender variance.Activist initiatives aim to facilitate the integration of khwaja siras into Pakistani society and this creates pressures for khwaja siras’ to present themselves as ‘dignified’ and find inclusion by outwardly complying with dominant perceptions surrounding their community. Sexuality plays a pivotal role in khwaja sira activism, and construction of ‘dignified’ khwaja sira citizen and so I underscore rights-based advocacy to highlight legal framing of trans partnerships and why khwaja sira activists internally remain opposed protesting for the right to marriage. This research will contribute to scant literature on socio-political dynamics that inform the lives of gender and sexual minorities in Pakistan
A feminist critique of cybersecurity: Techno feminist imaginaries of vulnerability and care
Full text linkIn this collection of five short essays, each authors examine how online spaces produce and reproduce queer marginalisation while also offering opportunities for queer expression, connection, and resistance. Tanvi Kanchan examines Indian queer activists’ connections with Indigenous and Black politics in the U.S. and anti-gender rhetoric that travels between American conservative contexts and Indian Hindutva contexts to highlight how digitally mediated transnational rhetoric is simultaneously progressive and reactionary. Łukasz Szulc, on the other hand, proposes that feminist and queer manifestos can suggest ways to imagine alternative digital futures and navigate the present. Likewise, Yener Bayramoğlu unearths the ambivalence emerging from digital spaces offering connection, visibility, and resistance while also extracting data and regulating subjects. Ahmet Atay considers how the digital mundane presents an opportunity for queer disruption and activism, and, finally, Rohit Dasgupta encourages the tension of concurrent embodiment in digital and offline spaces. From these essays, we see rising tensions between digitally mediated 'transnational' and the local struggles, and queer critical imaginaries and organisational work. Here, we find space for queer presence and activism within both mediated and unmediated public spaces
“You make me do too much labour”: What Paris Paloma’s anthem reveals about care, capitalism and gender
No full textParis Paloma’s viral hit Labour is more than a feminist anthem. Dr Sophie Chamas explores how it reveals a window onto the hidden, gendered and racialised work of care that capitalism depends on but refuses to name or pay
Dissecting Social Malaise in Literature: Abe Kazushige's Textual Interplay with the Heisei Era
No full text
Writing Modern Burmese Women: Sexuality, Body and Madness in the Work of Kyi Aye
Full text linkThis thesis examines the representation of Burmese women in relation to themes of modernity, sexuality, love, marriage, and the body and mind, as depicted in Kyi Aye’s literary works from the 1940s to the 1990s. While recent scholarship in historiography, anthropology, and cultural studies has expanded insights into Burmese women and gender ideologies, the field of literature remains largely underexplored from this perspective. Therefore, this research seeks to deepen the understanding of gender and sexuality ideologies among Burmese women by employing cultural studies approaches to analyse literary works within their specific social and historical contexts. The thesis analyses how mainstream discourses on the construction of women are manifested in Burmese society, alongside Kyi Aye’s responses and negotiations with these constructs, through various thematic lenses. To elucidate the power dynamics within these dominant narratives and the complexity of Burmese women’s writing, as represented by Kyi Aye, this study primarily draws on poststructuralist approaches to discourse, to in particular Stuart Hall’s considerations of culture and representation, and to Homi K. Bhabha’s concepts of the Third Space and hybridity. Chapter One, as introduction, highlights the significance of Kyi Aye and her literary writings by depicting her biography and explaining the reason of selecting her works as research subject. It discusses some problems in addressing the various audiences who may find this work of interest. In addition, it outlines the theoretical framework, methodological approach and data of this study. Chapter Two delineates the literature review of secondary references and highlights the research gaps and questions this thesis aims to fill in. Chapter Three briefly outlines the development of women’s writings in the context of contemporary Burmese literature, points out the complexity embedded in Burmese women’s writings and also places the author Kyi Aye in a general literary landscape. Chapter Four examines the concept of the ‘traditional woman’ in Burma, offering a cultural background for the mainstream constructions of female representation. It articulates the traditional images of women in Burmese culture by exploring gender ideologies rooted in Theravāda Buddhism, depictions of women in Burmese Jātaka tales, and representations of historical Burmese women from the pre-colonial period. Chapter Five continues to investigate the literary construction of the ‘modern Burmese woman’ through the lenses of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’. It begins with an analysis of portrayals of ‘modern women’ in print media and in the works of prominent authors. This is followed by a comparative examination of Kyi Aye’s writings on the subject, which highlights the ambiguity and complexity within her representations. Chapter Six examines the cultural and literary construction of Burmese sexology, showcased by Burmese male authors P. Moe Nin and U Nu’s works, aiming to understand the ‘hybridity’ of concepts related to sexuality, love, and marriage in Burma. The chapter further explores Kyi Aye’s works on these themes, analysing her critiques of restrictions on female sexuality and her nuanced, liminal perspectives on these issues. Chapter Seven addresses the imposed constructions of the female body within Burmese society as depicted in contemporary Burmese literature, showcased by Burmese male author Maha Swe and Dagon Taya’s works. It then focuses on Kyi Aye’s literary works to examine her ii portrayals of the female body through male gaze and mirrors, and her philosophical thinking on the body. Chapter Eight illustrates the social meanings of ‘madness’ in the Burmese context and examines the narratives of madwomen in Kyi Aye’s writings and points out the anger and negotiation intertwined in her liberated female characters. In conclusion, this thesis asserts the ambivalence and complexity inherent in Kyi Aye’s writings. It demonstrates how the integration of selected theoretical frameworks with the Burmese literary context provides a nuanced understanding of her work
The Impact of Legal Pluralism on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: A Case Study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
No full textMenski argues that law is much more than a body of rules that can merely be imposed on others by those who control the formal processes of law-making. Much current legal scholarship remains too closely focused on outdated, positivistic approaches, still proudly claiming their superiority over all other perspectives. Menski adds that we need to overcome such narrowly defined traditional legal structures and stresses the need to recognise the legal pluralism framework. Legal pluralism is understood as a situation in which two or more legal systems coexist in the same social field. It concerns the often complex interactions between those various legal orders. This framework allows the creation of autonomous and conflicting normative and judicial systems, and it is particularly prevalent when the legal systems are religious and or customary with sources that are “external and prior to, and in some cases, insulated from secular law”. Contemporary legal systems in both developed and developing countries often feature parallel, sometimes contradictory regulations, a phenomenon that is equally prevalent in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although formally grounded in Islamic Shariʿa, the Saudi system also accommodates customary norms and royal decrees, resulting in overlaps and gaps that can fragment human rights protections. This pluralism provides an ideal basis for case studies and further empirical investigation.This thesis will examine how the existence of multiple legal orders can impact the promotion and protection of human rights by analysing the different sources of law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and how they interact. It draws on in-depth interviews and surveys to discuss and demonstrate how the plurality of these laws shapes human rights advocacy in the country. Data from interviews and surveys were coded thematically in the NVivo software to identify and map recurring patterns and relationships across participants’ narratives, to further explore if they are inherently incompatible, mutually reinforcing or something in between. As Saudi Arabia is one of the Muslim majority states whose human rights records are frequently under international scrutiny, the research would contribute to scholarship on the subject by providing insight into the role and impact of its pluralistic legal system in relation to its human rights practices
The development of Sanskrit velars into Gāndhārī
Full text linkAs a language of religious and administrative importance in the early centuries of the common era, Gāndhārī came to be a donor into its neighbouring languages, such as Tocharian and Chinese. Consequently, advances in Gāndhārī historical phonology can help us discover new loanwords, refine our understanding of the historical phonology of its neighbouring languages, and eventually improve our understanding of the relationship between the communities that spoke those languages. One unresolved problem in the study of Gāndhārī phonology is the development of Sanskrit unaspirated velar stops: the relative paucity of data and variation in spelling have left previous researchers hesitant regarding the developments of those stops and their phonetic realization. In the present article, we take a bird’s eye view and analyse the development of these velars across the whole edited corpus; our main contribution is the discovery of the phonetic environment conditioning the development of /k/ and /g/, thereby fully explaining the seemingly chaotic spelling observed in previous publications
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage SOAS Research Online? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!