Capable Women, Incapable States
Negotiating Violence and Rights in India
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:12th Jan '21
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- Hardback£88.00(9780190881894)
In recent decades, the issue of gender-based violence has become heavily politicized in India. Yet, Indian law enforcement personnel continue to be biased against women and overburdened. In Capable Women, Incapable States, Poulami Roychowdhury asks how women claim rights within these conditions. Through long term ethnography, she provides an in-depth lens on rights negotiations in the world's largest democracy, detailing their social and political effects. Roychowdhury finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules, but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. And they behave this way because law enforcement personnel do not protect women from harm but do allow women to take the law into their own hands.These negotiations do not enhance legal enforcement. Instead, they create a space where capable women can extract concessions outside the law, all while shouldering a new burden of labor and risk. A unique theory of gender inequality and governance, Capable Women, Incapable States forces us to rethink the effects of rights activism across large parts of the world where political mobilization confronts negligent criminal justice systems.
The importance of the topic, the well-designed and well-conducted research, and Roychowdhury's insightful analyses of the complicated issues surrounding legal reforms, violence, and implementation of rights in the twenty-first century make Capable Women, Incapable States a valuable and very useful book for scholars and students of gender, law, and states...Capable Women, Incapable States will be an excellent way to start conver- sations with students, especially in courses on law, gender, feminist legal theory, and human rights, and will motivate further research in this area. * Tugce Ellialti-Kose, Feminist Legal Studies *
brilliant, pathbreaking work ... apable Women, Incapable States is a tour de force, an analysis of the state from multiple perspectives that should influence a new generation of legal andpolitical scholarship * Joya Misra, American Journal of Sociology *
...it is the subjective shift Roychowdhury documents when women learn that the law is a strategic field open to them to engage with and manipulate that proves the most enduring lesson. These women's recognition that the legal system can be strategically navigated as a way to claim rights is perhaps the strongest justification for developing 'capability'. In doing so, Roychowdhury presents a clear case for why rights continue to matter even in the face of incapable systems of justice. * Chelsea Wallis, BCL Candidate, Univeristy of Oxford, Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies *
This book is a must read for scholars and activists, especially those who are interested in deepening their understanding of gender-based violence, women's empowerment, and agency in the context of the state and its political, administrative, and legal systems and mechanisms. The book provides a first-hand account of violence and women's journeys through risky and labourious paths for claiming justice. * Rajib Nandi, Pacific A!airs: Volume 97 *
- Winner of Winner, 2022 Gordon Hirabayashi Book Award, American Sociological Association Human Rights Section Winner, 2022 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society Honorable Mention, 2022 Distinguished Book Award, American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2022 Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Law and Society Association.
ISBN: 9780190881900
Dimensions: 239mm x 165mm x 41mm
Weight: 386g
250 pages