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2: South Asia

  • Page ID
    153971
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    CIA Maps.
    CIA Maps.

    • 2.1: South Asia - Introducing the Region
    • 2.2: Controlling National Borders by Controlling Reproduction- Gender, Nationalism, and Nepal’s Citizenship Laws
      In this chapter the authors discuss how Nepal, a small country located between two powerful nations (China and India), struggles to maintain its sovereignty and national identity. The state’s politics of belonging exclude certain groups of women from citizenship. Caste, class, national origin, and ethnic markers like language intersect to affect women’s access to the rights granted to citizens.
    • 2.3: Understanding Caste and Kinship within Hijras, a “Third” Gender Community in India
      In this chapter, the author looks at the organization and functions of a third-gender group in India: the hijras. Here we see how hierarchy and caste also shape third-gender hijra communities. These communities create and operate through discipleship-kinship systems that both regulate their activities and create a power structure among the hijras. These kinship systems are not recognized and legitimized by the Indian state but by the internal hijra governance councils.
    • 2.4: The “City” and “The Easy Life”- Work and Gender among Sherpa in Nepal
      In this chapter, the authors examine the ongoing poverty of the region that has been the focus of many international development plans and efforts. The authors explore the impact some of these development projects have had on work patterns among ethnic Sherpa women in Nepal. They question whether or not wage labor and urban lifestyles with Western patterns of consumption (the markers of development) actually contribute to women’s emancipation and empowerment.


    This page titled 2: South Asia is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Nadine T. Fernandez, Katie Nelson and contributors (OpenSUNY) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.