Faculty Colloquium Series: Chaitanya Lakkimsetti (SOCI) 4/14/20
“LGBTQ Social Movements in India: A Multi-sited Ethnography“ In compliance with recommendations surrounding COVID-19, our Colloquium Series is being moved online for the remainder of the semester. Zoom Meeting information: Meeting ID: 585 846 851 https://tamu.zoom.us/j/585846851 Dr. Chaitanya Lakkimsetti Sociology, 2019-2020 Glasscock Faculty Research Fellow Abstract: In the past few years sexual and gender minorities […]
“LGBTQ Social Movements in India: A Multi-sited Ethnography“
In compliance with recommendations surrounding COVID-19, our Colloquium Series is being moved online for the remainder of the semester.
Zoom Meeting information:
Meeting ID: 585 846 851
https://tamu.zoom.us/j/585846851
Dr. Chaitanya Lakkimsetti
Sociology, 2019-2020 Glasscock Faculty Research Fellow
Abstract:
In the past few years sexual and gender minorities in India have gained significant legal gains including the repeal of the colonial era anti-sodomy laws and the legal recognition of transgender identity. While these developments often are represented in main stream media (and even in some academic discourse) as a march forward from regressive traditions to modern progressive sexual values. A simple representation of these developments as progress from tradition to modernity undermines the complex histories of colonialism and nationalism that shaped these regressive legal and social regulations in the first place. Drawing on postcolonial scholarship and legal and policy debates on the anti-sodomy law and transgender rights, this project shows how modernity and tradition are not just fixed temporal concepts, but shifting ideological and social relationships. In particular it focuses on how activist groups rework ideas about tradition and modernity into “locally” meaningful patterns of democratic rights.
The Faculty Colloquium offers faculty an opportunity to discuss a work-in-progress with faculty and graduate students from different disciplines. By long-standing practice, colloquium presenters provide a draft of their current research, which is made available to members of the Glasscock Center listserv. Each colloquium begins with the presenter’s short (10-15 minute) exposition of the project, after which the floor is open for comments and queries. The format is by design informal, conversational, and interdisciplinary.
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