Bodily rights and collective claims: the work of legal activists in interpreting reproductive and maternal rights in India

Abstract

This article engages with anthropological approaches to the study of global human rights discourses around reproductive and maternal health in India. Whether couched in the language of human rights or of other social justice frameworks, different forms of claims-making in India exist in tandem and correspond to particular traditions of activism and struggle. Universal reproductive rights language remains a discourse aimed at the state in India, where the primary purpose is to demand greater accountability in the domain of policy and governance. Outside of these spheres, other languages are strategically chosen by activists for their greater resonance in addressing individual cases of women claiming reproductive violence within the context of the family as well as localized histories of feminist struggle and social justice. In focusing on the work of legal activists and the discourses which inform their interventions, this article seeks to understand how the language of reproductive rights is used in the context of India, not as a 'Western import' which is adapted to local contexts, but rather as one of multiple frameworks of claims-making drawn upon by legal activists emerging from distinct histories of struggle for gender equality and social justice.

Divorce, kinship, and errant wives: Islamic feminism in India, and the everyday life of divorce and maintenance

“…My study of the negotiations in the women's sharia adalat also speak to the findings of ethnographic scholarship on mediation of marital disputes in alternative dispute resolution forums that show how kinship networks and ideologies shape mediation processes (Grover, 2009;Heitmeyer and Unnithan, 2015;Kowalski, 2016). However, I also carefully trace how gendered kinship roles are reconceptualised in these forums by women as they navigate points of crisis in the gendered heterosexual family.…”

“…My intervention speaks to existing scholarship that explores the modalities of mediation of marital and family disputes in alternative dispute resolution forums (Grover, 2009; Heitmeyer and Unnithan, 2015; Kowalski, 2016). Several non-state actors and alternative dispute resolution forums, including secular and religious women’s organisations are involved in the adjudication and arbitration of marital disputes in India (Solanki, 2011; Vatuk, 2013).…”

“…Similarly, Grover, in her ethnography of women’s local councils ( mahila panchayat ) in Delhi, traces how natal kinship networks shape the mediation of marital disputes for women in arranged marriages (Grover, 2009: 21). 5 Heitmeyer and Unnithan show how a voluntary association that ostensibly aims at providing legal counsel to women on their reproductive rights also emphasizes informal negotiations with kin networks, neighbourhood relations, and local state functionaries to secure women’s welfare (Heitmeyer and Unnithan, 2015: 384). In this paper, I advance this scholarship by drawing out how gendered kinship and the family is conceptualised in an alternative dispute resolution forum within an Islamic feminist ethical framework.…”

“Like a mother-daughter relationship”: Community health intermediaries' knowledge of and attitudes to abortion in Karnataka, India

“…Collective responsibility for women's reproduction can influence women's decision-making, superseding her own desires (Heitmeyer and Unnithan, 2015;Paul et al, 2017 In some PHCs, an informal network of CHIs collaborated to provide an affordable abortion for some women-economically constrained or meeting other "good" criteria. They described this as providing a safer alternative instead of pushing women to desperate measures or seeking care from "quacks" (i.e.…”

Human Rights

“…Much as activists and lawyers may present themselves as fighting entirely modern causes, their preferred methods and meanings in making claims are likely to have been preceded by, and to co-exist with, other ways to frame and make claims. In India, for example, legal activists' efforts to promote women's reproductive rights -in their ability to determine their fertility, body, and childbearing -use different modes of speech depending on who is being addressed (Heitmeyer & Unnithan 2015). While universal reproductive rights may be the language to use in claims aimed at the state, familial and religious contexts demand other strategies to make the claims audible.…”