Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India (Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies) - Softcover

Puri, Jyoti

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822360438 ISBN 13: 9780822360438

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2016

Synopsis

In Sexual States Jyoti Puri tracks the efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in India to show how the regulation of sexuality is fundamentally tied to the creation and enduring existence of the state. Since 2001 activists have attempted to rewrite Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which in addition to outlawing homosexual behavior is often used to prosecute a range of activities and groups that are considered perverse. Having interviewed activists and NGO workers throughout five metropolitan centers, investigated crime statistics and case law, visited various state institutions, and met with the police, Puri found that Section 377 is but one element of how homosexuality is regulated in India. This statute works alongside the large and complex system of laws, practices, policies, and discourses intended to mitigate sexuality's threat to the social order while upholding the state as inevitable, legitimate, and indispensable. By highlighting the various means through which the regulation of sexuality constitutes India's heterogeneous and fragmented "sexual state," Puri provides a conceptual framework to understand the links between sexuality and the state more broadly.  

About this title

About the Author:

Jyoti Puri is Professor of Sociology at Simmons College and the author of Encountering Nationalism. 

Review:

"[A] knowledge of the myriad ways in which power works helps us to arm ourselves in our fight for social justice, individual rights and democratic freedoms. Puri's book gives us the helpful ammunition we need in our struggle." (Ratnabir Guha The Telegraph, Calcutta 2016-11-18)

“Sexual States is deftly crafted.... Puri employs multiple methods with aplomb and to excellent effect.”

(Joseph J. Fischel Journal of the History of Sexuality 2017-09-01)

"[Puri] not only adds to a growing corpus of literature highlighting the necessity of a theoretical and political alliance in resisting state surveillance and brutality among those persecuted as ethno-religious minorities and those persecuted as gender and sexual minorities; she also draws attention to the Indian context, and by extension post-colonial contexts more broadly, as a theater of knowledge production in its own right, with its own intersecting and divergent histories of governmentality, biopolitics, and, sexuality. This should be considered required reading for any scholars interested in the Indian state, postcoloniality and sexuality studies." (Lars Olav Aaberg New Books Asia 2018-05-01)

"Puri’s book is an important addition to the critical sociological literature on sexualities, state, law, and biopolitics, not only for its theoretical sophistication but also for its empirical depth and rich ethnographic insights." (Chaitanya Lakkimsetti Contemporary Sociology 2017-08-28)

“Sexual States is a well-written book that will be important not only for how it makes us rethink sexual justice in India but also for the transnational framework it provides to understand the intricacies of sexuality, the state, and neoliberal processes.” (Nishant Upadhyay GLQ 2018-06-01)

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0822360438
• ISBN 13: 9780822360438
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232