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WORLD ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNION

CONGRESS 2024​

RoundTable

Global Queer, local Hijra-Koti-Dhurani: Sexuality, Body and Non-normative Gender Practices in South Asia.

moderators

    Sadeka Halim

    Nationality: Bangladesh

    Residence: Bangladesh

    Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

    Utsa Mukherjee

    Nationality: India

    Residence: United Kingdom

    Brunel University London

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

discussants

    Saptarshi Bairagi

    Nationality: India

    Residence: India

    University of Delhi

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

    Rezwana Karim Snigdha

    Nationality: Bangladesh

    Residence: Bangladesh

    Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka. Bngladesh

    Presence:Online

    Aniruddha Dutta

    Nationality: India

    Residence: United States of America

    University of Iowa

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

    Ina Goel

    Nationality: India

    Residence: Punjab

    Thapar School of Liberal Arts and Sciences

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

    Damini Biloria

    Nationality: India

    Residence: India

    Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, India

    Presence:Online

    Mansi Sonkar

    Nationality: INDIA

    Residence: INDIA

    IIT ROORKEE

    Presence:Face to Face/ On Site

Keywords:

Hijra-Koti/Kothi-Dhurani Studies, Queer, Gender and Sexualities, South Asian Non-normativity, Body

Abstract:

Queer is most often the case of a complex understanding of sex, sexuality and gender, subjectification, and categorization; ironically hegemonized by the Western paradigm of binaries as opposed to non-binaries; homosexuality vs heterosexuality; normative contrasted to non-normative. To locate sexualities within those binary and non-binary frameworks is not an absolute certainty over the glove, rather it is diversified, dynamic, and versatile, which is supposed to be a significant consideration in the Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender. Framing non-heteronormative sexualities as queer, discounting the significance of social emotions, rituals, norms, and cultural subtleties of localities, which pointedly manifest among the koti-hijra-dhurani in South Asia. There are three substantial ways that queer moves in recent anthropological trends. First, queer as an encounter with categorical legibility; Second, it is an intellectual necro politic; and third, locating queer as a deconstruction of Western normative knowledge projects, which are also a part of the speculative influence of colonial hegemony. To discover how this global queer is unable to represent local sexualities, we intend to focus on non-normative, non-Cisgenders’ diversified sexualities and sexual practices in South Asia. Therefore, we breed a seed to consider hijra, kothi/koti, dhurani as a distinct study of thought which is far more than the debate of either thirdness, transgender or queer identity politics to explore the significance of the local context of sexualities, sexual orientation, body and gender practices. The understanding of the localities of sexualities in anthropology also facilitates the analysis of sex, sexuality and gender in Anthropology. In this round table, we have invited scholars who have ethnographically grounded research or have been conducting research among koti/kothi, hijra, dhurani, aravani, kinnar, jogappa, khwaja-sira, or any other non-cisgender minorities or non-normative gender and sexualities in South Asia to sit together to cultivate a new discourse of anthropology of queer studies.