‘Honour Killings’ in India:
Caste, patriarchy and the shifting boundaries of acceptable marriage

Presentation and discussion with

Janaki Abraham

Wednesday October 3, 2012 | 5-7 pm
Room 5109 | CUNY Graduate Center

Free and open to the public

Co-sponsored with Women’s Studies

So called ‘honour killings’ in different parts of the India have brought into sharp focus the extreme reaction to marriages that are seen as violating rules of one kind or another. What is clear however, is that these rules and boundaries of acceptable marriage shift, and have shifted, over time. This paper will explore these shifts and the contingencies in the response to marriages and relationships across caste (and other) boundaries. I argue that rules of marriage merely become a ruse for reigning in some marriages that are seen to undermine familial and/or caste, community power, and those with the potential of disturbing the distribution of material resources.

Janaki Abraham is an Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi  School of Economics, Delhi University, Delhi,India. She works on issues of gender, kinship and caste in contemporary India.  Her forthcoming book is called  ‘Shifting  Boundaries: Gender, caste and matrilineal kinship in twentieth century Kerala, India’ and focuses on a ‘Backward caste’ in north  Kerala with a history of matrilineal kinship and inheritance. She has been associated with the Womens Movement in India for the past two decades.