Sociology - Publications

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    Patriarchal Bargains and Paradoxical Emancipation: Issues in the Politics of Land Rights of Kuki Women
    ( 2015-02-25) Sitlhou, Hoineilhing
    The article studies the interplay between gender, religion and politics by positing the case of Kuki women, and contributes towards an understanding of the mode in which patriarchy operates and is reinforced when it comes to women’s relationship to land. Ancestral land is tied to the sense of community and identity of the people. It is possible for daughters to inherit all movable and immovable property apart from ancestral land, upon which there are still restrictions to women’s ownership under traditional customary law. Kuki women have no political voice in decision-making where land is concerned, not only within formal state law, but also within local-level management systems such as the customary-law courts. The transnational encounter with missionary women in the 19th and 20th centuries changed the structure of gender relations within Kuki households and the community. However, religion seemed to represent a paradoxical emancipation: though emancipation came about to a certain extent it did not result in a change in power relations within society. Rather, religion adapted itself to suit the patriarchal context that already existed and indirectly supported the gender-biased inheritance customs that deprived women.
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    The shifting ‘stages’ of performance: a study of ‘Chavang Kut’ festival in Manipur
    ( 2018-10-02) Sitlhou, Hoineilhing
    Chavang Kut, a post-harvesting festival in Manipur, represents an important cultural expression of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group of people. The article looks at the participation of the Thadou community in the celebration by tracing their performative historiography. In the past, the celebration was primarily important in the religio-cultural sense. The rhythmic movements of the dances in the festival were inspired by animals, agricultural techniques and showed their relationship with ecology. Today, the celebration witnesses the shifting of stages and is revamped to suit new contexts and interpretations. The traditional dances which forms the core of the festival is now performed in the out-of-village settings and are staged in a secular public sphere. While used by the state as a political project to bring unity amongst the different communities of Manipur, recent socio-political occasions showed how it is used as a site of contestations against the state.
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    State Violence and Collective Victimhood in a Militarised State
    ( 2022-01-01) Sitlhou, Hoineilhing
    The implementation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur exemplifies how certain spaces and populations become margins through the administrative practices of the state. The state is endowed with the authority to categorise as legitimate or illegitimate the various forms of violence and practices toward its citizens. This action of the state has resulted in the formation of associations like the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Extrajudicial Execution Victim Families Association via the shared experience of violence and collective victimhood, connecting those families or individuals who are more adversely affected by AFSPA. The diverging perspectives and experiences of state violence are juxtaposed in order to display both the anguish and expectations of the victims’ families as also the commitments of the perpetrators towards the democratic state. Finally, the narratives of violence, sufferings and testimonies are repositioned and anchored to juridical and political discourse, in order to find the meanings of justice, healing and reparation in a militarised society like Manipur.
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    Identity, contestation and ethnic revivalism among Nepalis in Darjeeling
    ( 2018-01-06) Tamang, Sangay ; Sitlhou, Hoineilhing
    Nepalis in India tend to be treated as outsiders and this has prompted the political mobilisation of Nepali identity and the ethno-linguistic movement for "Gorkhaland." However, the struggle in the Darjeeling Hills is not for a single homogeneous identity, but a composite of diverse ethnic and caste entities. This article studies the fragmentation of ethnic identity within the movement, the resultant political changes, and the processes of negotiation in the quest for identity formation.