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About the Lecture:
Studies from various South Asian contexts on Maoist troops and the everyday life of women within the battalion explore how gendered notions of sexuality, femininity, companionship, and leadership roles are played out and their implications for women. It is important to look at how women negotiate these gendered terrains while participating in the armed struggles, and the challenges that underpin such negotiations. Studies also show that the nature of support extended by women is not always limited to their role as combatants in the field but also includes their participation in daily chores within the battalion which is centered around notions of domesticity. This gender dimension of the everyday within the troops is marginal in the scholarship on Peace, Conflict and Security Studies and requires further engagement through a feminist lens. It disrupts the coherent notion that participation in armed struggle helps women to escape patriarchy and raises questions around this ‘ambivalent emancipation’ in the ‘Red Corridors’ of India. I also explore how women in resistance are shaped by their varied socio-economic and political contexts and how women engage with the socio-political shifts by being in varied class, caste, ethnic and regional positionalities. These intersectional experiences of women provide a useful methodological tool to articulate gender and conflict through their diverse manifestations.
About the speaker:
Dr Aleena Sebastian is Assistant Professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore. Her areas of research interest include kinship and gender, sexuality studies, urban sociology, decolonial theories, and city, health and social policy.