Communities of Women in Assam Being, doing and thinking together [Hardcover]

This book uses communities of women as a framework for reading womens experience, rights and aspirations in Assam and Northeast India. It explores the varying roles played by such communities in the formation of society, the emergence of a womens public sphere and the representation of these communities in culture. The essays in the volume study a host of womens communities including the Mahila Samiti, Jain womens organisations, Lekhika Sanstha, lesbian communities, religious gatherings, scientific and environmental groups, womens collaborations through cookbooks, as well as nebulous communities of victims of persecution. They examine how womens communities are both empowering and transformational but may paradoxically also be regressive and static.

Lucid, analytical, and rich with case studies, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of gender studies, sociology, political science, history and cultural studies, particularly those interested in Northeast India.

Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1: Society 1. Great Sensation in Guwahati : Minis Marriage, Assam Mahila Samiti and the Sarda Act in late colonial Assam 2.Witch-hunting and resistance to the formation of womens community 3.Participation in and Access to the Public Sacred Space: Sisterhood and the Naamghar in Assam 4.Questions of Space, Autonomy and Identity: A study of the Communities of Jain women in Dibrugarh 5.Lesbian Women and the Politics of Community Formation: Changing Discourses on Citizenship Part 2: Culture 6. Media Representing Women -Women in the Media Exploring Possibilities of Community 7.Pushpalata Das Agnisnata Chandraprava: Woman Writing Woman8.The Assam Lekhika Sanstha: A Community of Women Writers 9.Nature, Science and Womens Community 10.