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"I cut it off and the world changed": how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction

Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN › Conference paper › peer-review

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"I cut it off and the world changed": how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction. / Nataraj, Shakthi.
2023. 366 Paper presented at American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting.

Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN › Conference paper › peer-review

Harvard

Nataraj, S 2023, '"I cut it off and the world changed": how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction', Paper presented at American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, 13/11/23 - 17/11/23 pp. 366.

APA

Nataraj, S. (2023). "I cut it off and the world changed": how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction. 366. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting.

Vancouver

Nataraj S. "I cut it off and the world changed": how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction. 2023. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting.

Author

Nataraj, Shakthi. / "I cut it off and the world changed" : how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory’s sex-gender distinction. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting.

Bibtex

@conference{3a829be6a3c14a17aaf58d084f91f2fd,
title = "{"}I cut it off and the world changed{"}: how thirunangai ontologies of activism and the body challenge queer theory{\textquoteright}s sex-gender distinction",
abstract = "This talk shares a fragment from my research with thirunangai activists in Tamil Nadu, South India, and some of their ontologies of sex, language, and activism that make productive and creative demands on the sex/gender distinction used widely in feminist and queer research. Thirunangai ontologies treat genital excision not only as a way to bring bodies into alignment with a psychic experience of gender, nor gender as a kind of discursive citation. Rather, an act of corporeal transformation is both a material and spiritual transition for which a person can be held to account by wider society and be asked to furnish proof. Analysing a poem by thirunangai activist Kalki Subramaniam alongside ethnographic vignettes, I offer new ways of considering gender and the body, and therefore the stakes of gender transition.",
author = "Shakthi Nataraj",
year = "2023",
month = nov,
day = "16",
language = "English",
pages = "366",
note = "American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting ; Conference date: 13-11-2023 Through 17-11-2023",
url = "https://openanthroresearch.org/index.php/oarr/preprint/view/395/667",

}

RIS

TY - CONF

T1 - "I cut it off and the world changed"

T2 - American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting

AU - Nataraj, Shakthi

PY - 2023/11/16

Y1 - 2023/11/16

N2 - This talk shares a fragment from my research with thirunangai activists in Tamil Nadu, South India, and some of their ontologies of sex, language, and activism that make productive and creative demands on the sex/gender distinction used widely in feminist and queer research. Thirunangai ontologies treat genital excision not only as a way to bring bodies into alignment with a psychic experience of gender, nor gender as a kind of discursive citation. Rather, an act of corporeal transformation is both a material and spiritual transition for which a person can be held to account by wider society and be asked to furnish proof. Analysing a poem by thirunangai activist Kalki Subramaniam alongside ethnographic vignettes, I offer new ways of considering gender and the body, and therefore the stakes of gender transition.

AB - This talk shares a fragment from my research with thirunangai activists in Tamil Nadu, South India, and some of their ontologies of sex, language, and activism that make productive and creative demands on the sex/gender distinction used widely in feminist and queer research. Thirunangai ontologies treat genital excision not only as a way to bring bodies into alignment with a psychic experience of gender, nor gender as a kind of discursive citation. Rather, an act of corporeal transformation is both a material and spiritual transition for which a person can be held to account by wider society and be asked to furnish proof. Analysing a poem by thirunangai activist Kalki Subramaniam alongside ethnographic vignettes, I offer new ways of considering gender and the body, and therefore the stakes of gender transition.

M3 - Conference paper

SP - 366

Y2 - 13 November 2023 through 17 November 2023

ER -