In this paper, I argue that to truly understand the complexity and "high prevalence" of acid violence against women in Bangladesh, we must pay attention to the confluence of political, economic and historical forces that make certain social groups more vulnerable to such extreme violence and suffering. By tracing the life history narratives of survivors of gender-based violence, I hope to shed light that acid throwing-a form of gendered violence-has to be understood beyond a "culturalist" framework, which explains this phenomenon as a product of harmful patriarchal cultural practices, seemingly more prevalent in certain South Asian cultures. Rather, I argue, acid violence has to be understood within a broader "structural inequality" framework, which maps the vulnerability of the victims onto their life trajectory shaped by complex forces of globalization, neoliberal development, patriarchy and poverty. Focusing on the systemic oppressions faced by vulnerable social groups whether embedded in family, kin and community structures or the global capitalist system, I argue that mapping a trajectory of suffering can aid in imagining a more nuanced and humane transnational analytic and response with regards to violence against women.
This article explores the trajectory of global feminism from the vantage point of the US, and its treatment of `Other Women' in the service of its own hegemonic (re)construction and simultaneous occlusion of multiple feminisms both within and beyond the US. It also offers reflections on locating global feminisms instead in `alternate' venues and avoiding reproducing the West as its predetermined default frame of reference. I am proposing to undertake a critique of global feminism in two ways: through how the discipline of women's studies is organized and how global feminism is deployed politically. The analytical tools that help me take on global feminism are to be found in US anti-racist feminism and transnational feminism. That is, US anti-racist and transnational feminisms can aid in the analysis and shifting the politics of feminism.
This essay examines women's oppression and organizing against gender violence in contemporary Bangladesh through the lens of television. I argue that the telefilm Ayna (The Mirror, 2006), written and directed by popular film actor and women's rights activist Kabari Sarwar, offers a window into the changing social and economic landscape of contemporary Bangladesh and the complex negotiations of power and inequality across gender, class and community. Furthermore, it offers an opportunity to unpack the social messages underlying development and modernization initiatives, the new kinds of alliances as well as dependencies engendered by them, and their multiple and uneven consequences. An investigation of the representations of competing and contradictory notions of women's subjectivity and agency in this telefilm allows us to understand how these intersect with shifting notions of local/global patriarchies, feminist solidarity and women's empowerment in Bangladesh today. Further, this essay illuminates the disjunctures between representations of the 'new woman' circulated through development and certain feminist advocacy narratives with women's lived realities of oppression, and survival.
This note showcases the story of Nurun Nahar, a survivor of acid violence in Bangladesh, to demonstrate that, despite protective measures, state, medical, and legal institutions continually fail to adequately respond to violence against women systematically and deny women rights to state protection, which are affirmatively embodied in law. The failure of state institutions to ensure appropriate care has been somewhat mitigated by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), particularly women's groups, which are albeit heavily constrained because of the volume of demand yet scarcity of expertise, infrastructure, and funds. In addition, this note offers some thoughts on how nonstate actors, namely, women's NGOs, have created alternative strategies and visions for victimized women's recovery and empowerment.
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