Srila Roy, "Changing the Subject: Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India" (Duke UP, 2022)
In\xa0Changing the Subject: Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India\xa0(Duke UP, 2022),\xa0Srila Roy maps the rapidly transforming terrain of gender and sexual politics in India under the conditions of global neoliberalism. The consequences of India\u2019s liberalization were paradoxical: the influx of global funds for social development and NGOs signaled the co-optation and depoliticization of struggles for women\u2019s rights, even as they amplified the visibility and vitalization of queer activism. Roy reveals the specificity of activist and NGO work around issues of gender and sexuality through a decade-long ethnography of two West Bengal organizations, one working on lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues and the other on rural women\u2019s empowerment. Tracing changes in feminist governmentality that were entangled in transnational neoliberalism, Roy shows how historical and highly local feminist currents shaped contemporary queer and nonqueer neoliberal feminisms. The interplay between historic techniques of activist governance and queer feminist governmentality\u2019s focus on changing the self offers a new way of knowing feminism\u2014both as always already co-opted and as a transformative force in the world.\nShraddha Chatterjee has a PhD in Gender, Feminist & Women\u2019s Studies from York University, Toronto, and is the author of Queer Politics in India: Towards Sexual Subaltern Subjects (Routledge, 2018).\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies