2nd Global Conference
Wednesday 30th November - Saturday
3rd December 2005
Vienna, Austria
Session 10a: SAS in India
Chair: Silvia Rief
Identifying the Subject: Human Rights,
HIV/AIDS, and Men Who Have Sex With Men in Calcutta
Paul
Boyce
Thomas Coram Research Unit,
Institute of Education,
University of London, United Kingdom
This paper examines the capacity
of human rights discourses to articulate the needs of sexual subjects.
This is explored in respect of men who have sex with men in Calcutta – especially
those for whom same-sex
sexuality has little or no correlation to identity. Building on this
case-study the partial nature of sexual experience is explored and
the coherence of sexuality as a discrete domain is interrogated. The
implications for rights-based advocacy, especially in the context of
HIV/AIDS programming, are examined.
Stressing conceptualization of ‘non-identified’ sexual
subjects the paper examines theories of sexual citizenship. The capapcity
of such theories to represent sexual subjects who either refuse or
do not
comprehend same-sex sexual classification is considered. The scope
for ‘disidentification’ as grounds for praxis is advanced
in reference to petitions for same-sex sexual rights on grounds of
privacy in the
Indian constitution. Problems in deploying such a stance as a coherent
standpoint for advocacy are considered.
The concepts explored in this
paper take on a particular urgency in the context of HIV/AIDS work,
as programmes addressing the rights and needs of less identifiable
sexual subjects are critical to effective
health promotion. Whilst rights-based discourses have been vital for
the advancement of international HIV/AIDS programming, these have tended
to reproduce limited understandings of sexuality (premised on basic
ideas of identity). More conceptually advanced approaches, premised
on understandings of sexuality and identity as potentially isomorphic
will better enable rights-based advocay for same-sex sexual subjects
in
HIV/AIDS programming.
Politics of (HOMO) Sexual Identities,
Spaces, and Risks of HIV/AIDS: A Study of Gays in New Delhi
Kiran
Bhairannavar
Department of Geography, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
Space is
a basic entity for expression of one’s sexuality. A
strong Patriarchal setup and a skewed construction of Masculinity in
the Indian social setup make space highly heterosexualised one. However
amidst this heteronormative patriarchal set up there have been and
there are sexual minorities – Gays, Lesbians, Kothis, Giriyas,
Hijras, Bisexuals, Transgendered (about five million of them!), who
continue to face discrimination, stigma and harassment from their "straight" counterparts.
Moreover article 377 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) criminalizes homosexuality,
making things worse.
My paper, through 35 conversational interviews of Gay men in New Delhi,
explores the interrelationship between space and homosexual identities,
which I argue are mutually constituted. It tends to find out how objective
space is snatched away from this "invisible" community thus
obstructing the creation of safe social spaces which is very much necessary
to avoid risks to life including HIV/AIDS. Examining the politics of
space and identity, it tends to explore the role of organizations (NGOs)
and groups (especially LGBT activism) in creating safe spaces for the
community.
The paper looks into how Spaces of home, workplace, public spaces and
society at large are appropriated and controlled by the heterosexual
majority thus marginalizing gays to suffering, discrimination and harassment
thus increasingly exposing them to risks of HIV infections. It also
examines the role of Article 377 IPC in aggravating the situation.
Further it looks into the role of Cyber Revolution and the efforts
of various advocacy, support, and human rights groups, and their (political)
struggle in creating safe spaces for gays thus bringing a ray of hope
to reduce the plight of this Community in the capital city of India
Marriage and Politics of Love: How Love
and Intimacy
Could be in Case of Infertility in Rural India
Mizuho
Matsuo
Graduate University for Advanced Studies,
Osaka, Japan
In recent years the topic of infertility has received
much public attention. This can be traced to a rapid progress in New
Reproductive Technologies, legal issues concerning biogenetic production
of life and the transformative possibilities of family relations. Despite
continued dialogue over such legal, social, biological and ethical
concerns, little attention has been given to the most basic tenet in
this matter, namely, Love. In particular, little focus has been dedicated
to love and intimacy within marriage arrangements in non-western societies,
such as India
For most infertile couples, especially women in India, the implications
of infertility do not merely concern physiology, but create a sense
of lacking or missing ‘femininity’ and ‘motherhood’.
This may result in an individual’s continual social suffering,
deprivation and a profound crisis of love and intimacy. Because women
are deemed primarily responsible for producing successor(s) to in-laws,
it is not uncommon practice for men to divorce or to take a second
wife if the first wife is not capable of conception. When faced with
such a situation, women may play a secret role in choosing a new wife
for her husband. Therefore, it can be said that infertility becomes
the site of gender, sex and body politics, with individuals seeking
to dominate, contest, and negotiate each other.
This paper is drawn from two years of fieldwork in rural Maharashtra,
in West India. Over the course of sixty interviews with infertile couples
I have been able to explore the possibilities of love and intimacy
for couples in Indian society. By examining how people construct social
relationships based on the body, gender, and sexuality, this paper
reveals that within Indian society there is a wealth of diversity in
the characters of love and intimacy in marriage.
