Bodies Gone Awry

Abstract

The article attempts to probe the silence of mainstream development discourse on sexuality and reproductive and sexual rights. This seems to go against the fact that there is now greater admission in development literature on Kerala that gender imbalances in a number of crucial indices do mar the state's claims of high levels of human development. This question is approached through an examination of the ways in which developmentalism has inflected both public discourse and academic knowledge in Kerala, and their interpenetration. Historically, sexuality has been marginalised in Kerala and projected onto prostitute-bodies; in the 1990s, the fear of 'unbounded' sexuality had been a prominent feature of public discourse. The sexualisation of deprived groups to strip them of moral claims to welfare indicates the heightening of abjection as a major mode of social exclusion. The abjection of sexuality in contemporary Malayalee public discourse and the silence about women's sexual and reproductive rights in contemporary development discourse do not appear unconnected. The current situation seems to call for creative dialogue between feminist and counterheteronormative politics, which would resist protectionism and heterosexism.

Mothers vs Children: Co-opting Child Rights as Gender Backlash

“…She was suspended from her job at Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and an inquiry commissioned against Fathima on 'the charge of fomenting enmity between communities' (The Hindu 2020). 8 Kerala' s long history of controlling women' s bodies based on Brahmanical patriarchal norms --structured around both caste and gender hierarchy --has constructed gender norms where progress on gender rights rights is considered to be only of the mind through women' s education; female bodies, specifically the sexuality of women, have been intentionally side-stepped within this 'progress' (Devika 2009).…”