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About this book
With Respect to Sex is an intimate ethnography that offers a provocative account of sexual and social difference in India. The subjects of this study are hijras or the "third sex" of India—individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane.
Hijras are men who sacrifice their genitalia to a goddess in return for the power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborn children, a ritual role they are respected for, at the same time as they are stigmatized for their ambiguous sexuality. By focusing on the hijra community, Gayatri Reddy sheds new light on Indian society and the intricate negotiations of identity across various domains of everyday life. Further, by reframing hijra identity through the local economy of respect, this ethnography highlights the complex relationships among local and global, sexual and moral, economies.
This book will be regarded as the definitive work on hijras, one that will be of enormous interest to anthropologists, students of South Asian culture, and specialists in the study of gender and sexuality.
Hijras are men who sacrifice their genitalia to a goddess in return for the power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborn children, a ritual role they are respected for, at the same time as they are stigmatized for their ambiguous sexuality. By focusing on the hijra community, Gayatri Reddy sheds new light on Indian society and the intricate negotiations of identity across various domains of everyday life. Further, by reframing hijra identity through the local economy of respect, this ethnography highlights the complex relationships among local and global, sexual and moral, economies.
This book will be regarded as the definitive work on hijras, one that will be of enormous interest to anthropologists, students of South Asian culture, and specialists in the study of gender and sexuality.
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Yes, you can access With Respect to Sex by Gayatri Reddy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Cultural & Social Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Publisher
University of Chicago PressYear
2010Print ISBN
9780226707563, 9780226707556eBook ISBN
9780226707549Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration
- 1 The Ethnographic Setting
- 2 Hijras, Individuality, and Izzat
- 3 Cartographies of Sex/Gender
- 4 Sacred Legitimization, Corporeal Practice: Hindu Iconography and Hijra Renunciation
- 5 “We Are All Musalmans Now”: Religious Practice, Positionality, and Hijra/Muslim Identification
- 6 (Per)Formative Selves: The Production of Gender
- 7 “Our People”: Kinship, Marriage, and the Family
- 8 Shifting Contexts, Fluid Identities
- 9 Crossing “Lines” of Subjectivity: Transnational Movements and Gay Identifications
- 10 Conclusion
- Appendix
- Notes
- Glossary
- References
- Index