This book explores how Bangladeshi women from poor and
undereducated/semi-educated backgrounds who have crossed the
Indo-Bangladesh border find themselves in prisons serving sentences
under the Foreigners Act, 1946. Drawing on original fieldwork, this
book explores these women’s understanding of borders and state
sovereignty and how the women - from conservative rural and semi-rural
backgrounds which impose a strict moral code - adjust to the
socio-cultural context of an Indian prison, where being an inmate is
"dishonourable" in their community. This book examines the implicit
challenge in these women’s action and decisions to these codes of
honour, to accepted social norms of their religion and community, and
ultimately, the dominantly patriarchal system that marks South Asian
society. Further, it focuses on the negotiations that the Bangladeshi
women make with the social and political borders they encounter in the
process of crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border without requisite
documents needed by the state for entry into a "foreign" land; how
they cope with the daily challenges of living during their
imprisonment in a correctional home; and their feelings about their
impending return to Bangladesh. Women who are apprehended and
criminalised for crossing borders must negotiate with not only the
normative understanding of borders which is inherently masculine in
nature, but also the gender biased lens through which female mobility
is viewed: therefore, they not only cross political borders but also
social borders. This book maps the associations between women’s
experiences of mobility and incarceration, and their linkages with
social and political borders and the fraught experiences of being in a
‘foreign’ territorial space. It will be important reading for
criminologists, sociologists, and those engaged in penology, women’s
studies and migration studies.
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Love and Recasting of Self across the Bangladesh-India Border
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781351708357
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter