Proceedings of The 5th Global Conference on Women’s Studies
Year: 2023
DOI:
[PDF]
Redefining Contours of Dalit Feminism: Field Explorations
Shainal Verma
ABSTRACT:
Dalit feminists in everyday praxis are redefining the contours of feminism in India. This paper attempts to read the everyday of Dalit women to explore the multi-variegated nature of the social exclusion Dalit women face. This paper investigates Dalit feminist interventions over the course of a seven-month ethnographic immersion in the urban village of Mahipalpur in New Delhi. I attempt to trace how everyday life becomes a site through which the most epistemologically located and transparent testimonies of Dalit feminist interventions can be pursued. My fieldwork is focused on determining the extent to which the intersectional framework is relevant to comprehending the lives of Dalit women. I highlight specific case studies exploring how the intersectional framework provides us with the lens to examine how variables of caste, gender, class, space, and intimacy constitute Dalit women’s sociality within the domains of the public and private.
keywords: Dalit feminism, Anti-Caste, Dalit women, Dalit Studies, Critical Caste Studies