eCommons

 

The Place of Sexuality and the Sexuality of Place: A Dissident Social Geography of Bangalore, India

Other Titles

Abstract

The South Indian city of Bangalore has experienced a period of exponential growth and social chance since the India first underwent economic liberalization in the 1990s. Today Bangalore is a thriving metropolis of more than 10 million people, popularly known as “The Silicon Valley of India.” This dissertation approaches the study of Bangalore’s urban condition, not from the popular perspective of its thriving middle class or its high tech industry, but by examining how its prolonged period of growth has shaped the lives of the city’s LGBTQ residents. Expanding on anthropological scholarship about local instantiations of globally circulating sexual identity categories, as well as engaging with ongoing debates in queer theory, this dissertation theorizes sexual dissidence as the category around which people organize non-heterosexual sexualities and non-binary genders, and in turn organize their city. Drawing on 20 months of fieldwork, the ethnographic material focuses on different urban sites where sexually dissident people make and sustain communities organized around sexual difference. As a social geography, the dissertation asks how people make their lives meaningful, and it pays close attention to where and how they do so. As a result, it develops the concept of urban articulation to describe how urban geographies are made socially meaningful and materially distinct through sex, intimacy, and politics.

Journal / Series

Volume & Issue

Description

Sponsorship

Date Issued

2019-08-30

Publisher

Keywords

South Asian studies; Urban; Geography; Social Geography; ethnography; Cultural anthropology; Queer; Sexuality; India

Location

Effective Date

Expiration Date

Sector

Employer

Union

Union Local

NAICS

Number of Workers

Committee Chair

Ramberg, Lucinda E.G.

Committee Co-Chair

Committee Member

Langwick, Stacy A.
Munasinghe, Viranjini P.

Degree Discipline

Anthropology

Degree Name

Ph.D., Anthropology

Degree Level

Doctor of Philosophy

Related Version

Related DOI

Related To

Related Part

Based on Related Item

Has Other Format(s)

Part of Related Item

Related To

Related Publication(s)

Link(s) to Related Publication(s)

References

Link(s) to Reference(s)

Previously Published As

Government Document

ISBN

ISMN

ISSN

Other Identifiers

Rights

Rights URI

Types

dissertation or thesis

Accessibility Feature

Accessibility Hazard

Accessibility Summary

Link(s) to Catalog Record