With reference to India.

Three descriptive essays and numerous fascinating photographs, taken especially for this volume, allow the reader to experience a major monument of Indian art: the sixth century temple cave on Elephanta Island, in Bombay harbor, and its extraordinary stone sculptures. The authors and the photographer capture the atmosphere of the cave and the spirit of the sculptures, which portray the relentless energy and paradoxical power of Shiva, greatest of all Hindu gods. The photographs are particularly successful in revealing the dramatic alternation of light and dark that is so much a part of the beauty of the cave`s interior. Ms. Berkson`s trained and loving eye picks out the subtleties of the main sculptures and humorous details that the visitor might miss even on the site. In the text Wendy O`Flaherty interprets the myths of Shiva depicted in the sculpture; Ms. berkson`s essay supplies historical background and a stylistic analysis; and George Michell examines the overall structure of the cave to show that it is a mandala-like image of the heavenly mountain residence of Shiva and even of the structure of the universe itself. The author as well as the publishers of the work deserve to be congratulated for providing this easily accessible guide to Elephanta. Research Bulletin Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute,Vol.I, Dec.2002

"This book examines life trajectories among three categories of women living beyond the bounds of heteronormativity in Jakarta and Delhi, two major cities with substantively different religious and social values: women who have lost their husbands, either through divorce or death; sex workers; and young, urban lesbians. The Indian state is constitutionally committed to secularism and equal respect to all regions despite right-wing Hindu fundamentalism.The Indonesian state is constitutionally secular, but religion plays a large role in public life and is embedded in regulations that strongly impact people's private lives. Recently, there have been strong political currents to impose stricter Islamic codes. The public arena of sexual politics, in which the media play an important role, is explored in both cities"--

This book on the future of Asian feminisms, confronting fundamentalisms, conflicts, and neo-liberalism is a critical contribution to the rising voices of Asian women’s studies scholars and activists. It is based on the ongoing research and advocacy work of the Kartini Asia Network, founded in 2003 in Manila. The five overlapping themes of the network are women/gender studies, fundamentalisms, conflicts, livelihood and sexuality. Considering that the economic and political weight of the region is growing fast, and that the 21st century has been named the “Asian century,” Asia is increasingly recognised as the continent to which economic, if not political power, will shift in the coming decades. The chapters brought together in this volume demonstrate the great diversity of the “transversal cultural flow” that women’s movements within Asia provide. Members of the Kartini network stimulate the articulation of a particular “Asian voice” in women’s studies and in the global women’s movement. Considering the existing patriarchal structures all over the continent, a continuum of oppressions enfolds, from the global sphere of market exchange to emerging fundamentalisms and to bitter conflicts and struggles around sexualities. The present volume provides elements for the critical dialogues that are needed between women in the region, between women and men, between people in all sorts of strategic positions, and between theoreticians in the Global South and the Global North to create a world in which human dignity is not eroded by predatory economic processes and in which democracy, diversity, pluralism, and inclusivity are the guiding principles of governance.

The field of gender psychology is often dominated by work focusing on women. However, this book, adopting a psychological perspective, explores the various shades of gender, moving beyond its traditional binary division. The empirical research here provides insight into the significance of gender roles and identities in various spheres of life, including education and domestic, socio-political, and organizational settings. This volume also details various gender issues and challenge that permeate across cultures in Pakistan. Its data-driven approach will serve to guide psychologists, anthropologists, educationists, sociologists, and historians to orientate their research work within the psychological context of gender.

Using a cross-cultural perspective, The Everyday Makings of Heteronormativity: Cross-Cultural Explorations of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality examines the conceptual formulation of heteronormativity and highlights the mundane operations of its construction in diverse contexts. Heterosexual culture simultaneously institutionalizes its narrations and normalcies, operating in a way that preserves its own coherency. Heteronormativity gains its privileges and coherency through public operations and the mutuality of the public and private spheres. The contributors to this edited collection examine this coherency and privilege and explore in ethnographic detail the operations and making of heteronormative devices: material, affective, narrative, spatial, and bodily. This book is recommended for students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, and gender and sexuality studies.

Winner of the 2018 Wilbur Award There are more than one billion Hindus in the world, but for those who don’t practice the faith, very little seems to be understood about it. Followers have not only built and sustained the world’s largest democracy but have also sustained one of the greatest philosophical streams in the world for more than three thousand years. So, what makes a Hindu? Why is so little heard from the real practitioners of the everyday faith? Why does information never go beyond clichés? Being Hindu is a practitioner’s guide that takes the reader on a journey to very simply understand what the Hindu message is, where it stands in the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity, and why the Hindu way could yet be the path for plurality and progress in the twenty-first century.

Annotation. This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789056294755.

Here, the history of the Indonesian LBT movement is charted, from invisibility, to visibility and now as it moves again into hiding. In the early 1980s, during the oppressive military dictatorship called the New Order in Indonesia, the first organizations of Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans persons were established. They were short-lived, but prepared the ground for a more comprehensive LBT rights movement after the democratic opening of society in 1998. From 2000 to 2015 the visibility of the movement grew, until a vicious state-sponsored backlash set in, driven by majoritarian, fundamentalist Islamist groups. Saskia Wieringa tracks the movement's progress and explores the persistence of the butch/femme model of relationships; the proliferations of identities; family violence and conversion therapy; religion; and the anti-LGBT campaign. In its insistence on the local dynamics of this movement, the book aims to debunk the idea that homosexuality is a Western import. Chapters deal with the many religious and secular phenomena that are linked with gender diversity and same-sex relations traditionally, and the erasure of many of these traditions is explained using the concept of postcolonial amnesia. A Political Biography of the Indonesian Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Movement is also a contribution to the growing literature on decolonization studies, pointing out that its dynamics, its historical course and its present condition, different as they are from the dominant Western view on a global LGBT movement, needs to be considered as valuable as accounts of Western LGBT histories are.

Finalist for the 2014 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana Religions This is the first collection of essays to analyze intersectional religious and cultural practices surrounding the deity Yemoja. In Afro-Atlantic traditions, Yemoja is associated with motherhood, women, the arts, and the family. This book reveals how Yemoja traditions are negotiating gender, sexuality, and cultural identities in bold ways that emphasize the shifting beliefs and cultural practices of contemporary times. Contributors come from a wide range of fields—religious studies, art history, literature, and anthropology—and focus on the central concern of how different religious communities explore issues of race, gender, and sexuality through religious practice and discourse. The volume adds the voices of religious practitioners and artists to those of scholars to engage in conversations about how Latino/a and African diaspora religions respond creatively to a history of colonization.