Women and the contested state : religion, violence, and agency in South and Southeast Asia / edited by Monique Skidmore and Patricia Lawrence.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Skidmore, Monique.

Lawrence, Patricia.

Program in Conflict, Religion, and Peacebuilding.

Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Series:

Kroc Institute series on religion, conflict, and peace building

Kroc Institute series on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Violence against--Political aspects--South Asia--Congresses.

Women.

Women and war--Sri Lanka--Congresses.

Women and war.

Women and religion--Burma--Congresses.

Women and religion.

Women--Violence against.

Burma.

Sri Lanka.

South Asia.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

xi, 260 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press, [2007]

Summary:

Throughout South and Southeast Asia, groups battle over definitions of identity - in direction and character - for their state, a struggle complicated by the legacy of colonialism. The contributors to this volume explore the intricate, dynamic relationships that pertain between women's agency and the state-making institutions and armed forces of Kashmir, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Burma (Myanmar). They also address the complex roles of Islam, Hinduism, and Theravada Buddhism in these postcolonial dynamics. In particular, the contributors examine religion as a way of understanding how women's agency is constituted, created, and constrained during times of conflict with the state and other armed actors, such as guerilla groups and paramilitaries. These essays at the intersection of gender, religion, and peace studies will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students who study conflict and hope for peace in South and Southeast Asia.

Contents:

Introduction : religion and women in peace and conflict studies / Monique Skidmore

Contesting traditions : religion and violence in South Asia / Peter van der Veer

The citizen as sexed : women, violence, and reproduction / Veena Das

The nuclear fetish : violence, affect, and the postcolonial state / Betty Joseph

Overcoming the silent archive in Bangladesh : women bearing witness to violence in the 1971 "Liberation" War / Yasmin Saikia

The watch of Tamil women : women's acts in a transitional warscape / Patricia Lawrence

Mothers and wives of the disappeared in southern Sri Lanka : fragmented geographies of moral discomfort / Alexandra Argenti-Pillen

The other body and the body politic : contingency and dissonance in narratives of violence / Mangalika de Silva

Buddha's mother and the billboard queens : moral power in contemporary Burma / Monique Skidmore

With patience we can endure / Ingrid Jordt

To marry a man or a spirit? : women, the spirit possession cult, and domination in Burma / Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière.

Notes:

Based on presentations at a conference in 2003 of the Program in Conflict, Religion, and Peacebuilding at the Joan. B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-247) and index.

ISBN:

9780268041250

0268041253

9780268041267

0268041261

OCLC:

128237959