SPECIAL FAMILY
LOOKING AT WOMEN IN INDIA This November 9th, AAJ writer Sunny Mangat is heading to India to begin her PhD research. Sunny’s research will attempt to understand, how the experiences of Dalit women fit into India’s sexual violence discourse, within the context of the family, community and the state. Sunny is taking on an intersectionality approach and believes women are to be understood beyond their gender, but also under other identities such as class, caste, and religion. Thus, her aim as a feminist researcher is to expose as many of the connections that shape the constructions of the
narrations that are told by the Dalit women. Moreover, whilst in India Sunny will also be working on a project for AAJ, she will be looking to understand the targeted violence of women during communal riots. Through, careful and investigative research Sunny will be exploring the interconnectivity between caste, class and religion, from a gendered lens. She will attempt to understand how that interconnectivity shaped the violence against women during the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition, the 1984 Sikh Riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots.