%0 Journal Article
%T Dalit Feminism in Tokyo: Analogy and Affiliation in Transnational Dalit Activism
%A Purvi Mehta
%J Feminist Review
%@ 1466-4380
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0141778918818318
%X This article discusses different conceptions and translations of the devadasi system in transnational Dalit feminist activism. I focus specifically on activist participation at the 1994 Asia Tribunal on Women¡¯s Human Rights in Tokyo, Japan and the construction of an analogy between the experiences and struggles of devadasis and that of ¡®military comfort women¡¯, i.e. women from Japan¡¯s former colonies who were abducted and raped by the Japanese military during World War II. I argue that strategic claims of commonality are part of the process of making specific, local practices legible to a global audience and that these sorts of claims also enable transnational feminist activism and solidarity
%K activism
%K Basappa
%K Dalit studies
%K devadasi
%K Ruth Manorama
%K South Asia
%K transnational feminist activism
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141778918818318