This book forwards Assam (and Northeast India) as a specific location for studying operations of gendered power in multi-ethnic, conflict-habituated geopolitical peripheries globally.
In the shifting and relational margins of such peripheral societies, power and agency are constantly negotiated and in flux. Notions of masculinity are redefined in an interlaced environment of militarization, hyper-masculinization, and gendered violence. These interconnections inform victimhood and agency among the most vulnerable marginalized constituencies – namely, women and migrants. By centering the marginalized in its inquiry, the book analyzes obstacles to achieving positive, organic peace based on cooperation and mutual healing. The tools used to perpetuate an endless cycle of violence that makes conflict a habit – a way of life – are identified in order to enable resistance against them from within the margins. Such resistance must be based on reflexivity and strategic, cautious radicalism. This involves critically interrogating the inherent connections between engendered pasts and feminist futures, local changes and global contexts, as well as between small, incremental changes and big shifts impacting entire societies, nations, and global orders.
This book will be of much interest to students of ethnic conflict, conflict resolution, feminist peace, and Asian/South Asian politics.
Author(s): Uddipana Goswami
Series: Routledge Advances in Feminist Peace Research
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 176
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Engendering Peace
Why Northeast India?
Assam and Northeast India
The Conflicts
Engendering the Northeast’s Conflict Literature
Making Space in Asian Feminisms
Gender Studies and Northeast Women
Existing Approaches in Northeast Conflict Literature
Methodology
Ethnography and Feminist Ethnography
Reflexivity
Interviews
Documentary Sources
Book Map
Notes
References
1 Why Assam?: Making Peace in Peripheries
Introduction
Assam in Conflict
Gendered Conflicts in Violent Peripheries
Benign Patriarchies
Hyper Aggression
Many Violences
Multiple Centers and Moving Margins
Power in the Periphery
Engendered Peace
Assam and Asian Peripheries
Peace in the Peripheries
Northeast in the Asian Century
Notes
References
2 Men in Margins: Masculinity and Conflict
Introduction
Mainland Machismo
Masculinities in the Margins
When Patriarchies Collide
Fear, Conflict, Violence
Notes
References
3 Many Violences: Conflict as Habit
Introduction
Gendered Violences
Marginalized Gender
Migrant Other
Structures of Violence
In Policy
In Public Rhetoric
Tools of Violence
Breaking the Habit of Violence
Notes
References
4 Women Underground: Marginal, Peripheral?
Introduction
Women in Public Politics
Women Fragmented
Women’s Agency
Isolation
Recalibration
Transformation and Transcendence
Women and the Margins
Notes
References
Postscript: Peace Praxis and Reflexivity
Introduction
Reflection
Connection
Past, Present, Future
Individual and Collective
Local and Global
Interrogation
Notes
References
Index
