CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Rahman, Farhin |
|---|---|
| Title | What It Means to Occupy a Body: Religious Nationalism and Its Violent Effects on Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Bangladesh |
| Summary | With a tumultuous colonial historical past that affects the political landscape to this day, Bangladesh, in its first 36 years of existence as a sovereign state had witnessed constant change of power. Until the current Awami League government came to power in 2008, it had already struggled to negotiate a national image in the world. Stuck in a limbo between its Bangali and and Bangladeshi identity, where the former has become synonymous with ‘Hindu India’ and the latter as a distinct source of pan-Islamic relations, it has fostered powerful relations that has tipped its scale toward violent religious nationalism. This thesis examines the violent effects of this religious nationalism on women and LGBTQI+ bodies in contemporary Bangladesh. Through analysing the textual mediation in the socio-political discourse, I illustrate how the state manufactures a loyal and ideal body of a cis-hetero-Muslim-Bangali-male, and in the biopolitical process turns women and non-binary bodies into non-valuable, non-grievable abjected bodies. Judith Butler’s discussion on how bodies are constructed to matter in Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” and V. Spike Peterson’s understanding of heterosexist nationalism are foundational in the analysis done, with Kinberlé Crenshaw’s intersectionality as an analytical strategy providing the precise perspective through which the hierarchical positioning of unvaluable bodies are made to surface. I argue, that the sociopolitical scenario weaponises Islamic faith in the service of nation making, which inscribes each body to bear levels of belonging and erasure. This inscription has reaching impacts in the intersectional matrix of power relations where those bodies who are not explicitly targeted are not safe. A state that actively produces the cis-hetero-Muslim-Bangali-male ideal that is communicated through law, every day language and the environment of censorship and fear is a state where to occupy a body that is not ideal is to face brutal erasure. Key Concepts: religious nationalism; grievable and non-grievable bodies; biopolitics; secular violence |
| Supervisor | Barát, Erzsébet |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/rahman_farhin.pdf |
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