Call for Papers - Sixth National Conference on Intersectionality, Religious Minorities and Development of Women in India

Title: Call for Papers - Sixth National Conference on Intersectionality, Religious Minorities, and Development of Women in India

Deadline: 28^th February 2019

About the Conference:

Despite significant innovation and improvement over the years in legislation and social practices related to women, gender justice remains a far cry. For a majority of women in the country, irrespective of their class, creed and regional locations, the ‘right to property’, ‘education’ and ‘freedom’ remain distant dreams and their lives revolve around the male-dominated social practices. The question of their security and equity is also in complex ways linked with their identity of caste, religion, region, and ethnicity. They undergo a complex oppressive process perpetuated both by the larger society as well as internal patriarchal and unequal practices of their own communities. The opposition to women’s right in India shows that none of the religious groups have attempted to empower the women in holistic ways where they can fully enjoy their right as ‘citizens’. Women have been prisoners of the communities regulated by the personal laws of the specific religious groups.

Further, the women of the marginalised communities have often been targets of oppression and violence by the dominant groups. Rape, murder and women targeted violence during caste and religious violence in the country provide ample evidence for this. This shows that women in India are undergoing double and triple oppression. First, as women in the overall patriarchal system of the country and deprived of their right to equality through various traditional practices and by the national laws; second, varied subjugation by religious and ethnic groups and torture and tormentations within the communities; third, women belonging to minority communities, during the time of conflicts, suffer maximum violence on their mind and body. This results in overall deprivation of women – poor health, education and even access to justice. The challenges to women’s right need to be viewed from various perspectives: the intersectionality and location of ‘women’ in the complex social matrix becomes very important to understand their deprivations. Therefore, where one needs to talk about the situation of overall well-being of women as citizens, one also needs to look into their situation as members of specific communities, and the social and economic location of the communities itself. The efforts, as such, need to be calibrated accordingly for empowerment and overall well-being of the women.

In this regard, the broad themes, though not only limited to, for deliberation and discussions will be:

• Socio-economic situation of religious minorities and women belonging to the weaker section of the society in India
• Entrepreneurship, work participation, educational attainments, and political representation
• Constitutional provisions and rights of women
• Community resources and Waqf in development
• Government Schemes for women development
• The way out and learning from other societies/countries

Papers are invited on the above-mentioned themes. The last date for submission of Abstract (at least 500 words) is February 28, 2019. It is expected that all the papers in draft form would be submitted to the Convenors of the Seminar on the day of the seminar. Selected papers would be published in a volume.

The abstract should be emailed to ci.seminar2019@gmail.com

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