%0 Journal Article
%T Dalit Women in Mutation: The Birth of a New Social Organism
%A Anandita Pan
%J Contemporary Voice of Dalit
%@ 2456-0502
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/2455328X17745171
%X This essay is concerned with ¡®Dalit woman¡¯ as a category constructed through the intersection of caste and gender. It contends that in their effort to present ¡®woman¡¯ and ¡®Dalit¡¯ as two distinct and unitary groups, mainstream Indian feminism and Dalit politics treat caste and gender as mutually exclusive. As a result, Dalit women and their issues are either ignored, or they are assimilated separately within ¡®women¡¯ or ¡®Dalits¡¯. This article proposes that mutation, as an interventionist theoretical tool, can become useful in posing ¡®Dalit woman¡¯ as a new social organism. Taking P. Sivakami¡¯s autobiography, The Grip of Change (2006), as a case study, this article investigates the contours of ¡®Dalit woman¡¯ as a mutable category built in contradistinction to ¡®woman¡¯ in mainstream Indian feminism (wherein gender becomes the exclusive analytical structure) and ¡®Dalit¡¯ in Dalit politics (which sees caste system at the core of their oppression). Since this study investigates identity construction of ¡®Dalit woman¡¯, the exploration of the homogeneous representations of ¡®woman¡¯ and ¡®Dalit¡¯ primarily draws from autobiographical narratives
%K Dalit woman
%K mutation
%K cyborg
%K Donna Haraway
%K intersection
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2455328X17745171