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Changing the Subject:
Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India (2022)

In Changing the Subject Srila Roy maps the rapidly transforming terrain of gender and sexual politics in India under the conditions of global neoliberalism. The consequences of India’s liberalization were paradoxical: the influx of global funds for social development and NGOs signaled the co-optation and depoliticization of struggles for women’s rights, even as they amplified the visibility and vitalization of queer activism. Roy reveals the specificity of activist and NGO work around issues of gender and sexuality through a decade-long ethnography of two West Bengal organizations, one working on lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues and the other on rural women’s empowerment. Tracing changes in feminist governmentality that were entangled in transnational neoliberalism, Roy shows how historical and highly local feminist currents shaped contemporary queer and nonqueer neoliberal feminisms. The interplay between historic techniques of activist governance and queer feminist governmentality’s focus on changing the self offers a new way of knowing feminism — both as always already co-opted and as a transformative force in the world.

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Book Talks

Changing the Subject has been presented and discussed in various venues in South Africa, Australia, and the US, including:

- Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies

- Feminist Book Salon (video available)

- Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison

- Sociology Colloquium, The New School

- Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University

- South Asia Institute, Columbia University

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Other Publicity

The book has also featured in online videos and in the media, including:

  • 'Meet the Fellow' video for Hunt-Simes Chair in Sexuality Studies Visiting Fellowship (2022)

  • Article on Progress in Political Economy (PPE), University of Sydney

  • Article on Scroll.in

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