To Be Some Other Name
The Naming Games that Hijras Play
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2634781 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Saria (0000-0001-9121-5370, Institute for Human Development, corresponding author), Vaibhav Saria |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 12 |
| Publication date | 2015-10-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1960-6060 • E-ISSN: 1960-6060 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/samaj.3992 |
| OpenAlex | W1831965041 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article begins by studying the ritualized changing of names that hijras undertake and proposes that we understand them as a subjunctive, which is to say that these rituals create an order in which names and the selves they entail can be shed for new ones. I then show that the failure of this subjunctive mode of fashioning one’s past and future is met in its confrontation with the law, which names the hijra in a discernible pattern in order to locate criminality and identity with her male name. I argue that this implication of maleness reveals a commitment not only to biology and sex but also an Oedipal understanding of violence. This understanding links naming with the dynamic of asli (real) and nakli (false) and draws a social field between the two through the figures of the hijra politician and the hijra criminal
Aesthetics · Criminology · Linguistics · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research · Philosophy
Environments and Mutable Selves
Anthropology in a Mode of Dying
Arc of Interference
In the Vast Abrupt
Ethnographic Open
Inhabiting the state subjunctively
Law, Emasculation, and Sexual Violence in India
Cancer and secrecy in contemporary India
Mass Castration', Mechanical Devotion? Slavery, Surgery and As-If Devotion in a North Indian Guru Movement
Badnam Science? The Spectre of the 'Bad' Name and the Politics of Stem Cell Science in India
| Citations per year | 0.91 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |