Constructing subjects that matter: A case of conditional recognition for Pakistani Khawajasiras

Muhammad Aqeel Awan and Daniela Pianezzi

Gender, Work and Organization, 2023, vol. 30, issue 3, 1124-1141

Abstract: This paper examines how media discourses on gender and work play a part in regulating the lives of a community of Pakistani gender diverse people, called Khawajasiras. Developing a critical discourse analysis of media news, we show how this regulatory process results in discursive mechanisms positioning Khawajasiras' work as “dirty” and in need of “respectable” and exclusively “feminine” alternatives. This regulatory process revolves around delegitimizing Khawajasiras' non‐normative work and their gender fluidity in the job market. Khawajasiras' recognition is thus conditional upon their reproduction of a socially heteronormative notion of work and gender. We conclude that this regulatory process not only forecloses possibilities of resignification for this historically disenfranchised community but also risks producing new forms of abjection by enforcing notions of “fake” (with an implicitly assumed notion of “authentic”) Khawajasira. The findings of this paper ultimately problematize contemporary ideals of recognition of non‐normative gendered groups.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12981

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:gender:v:30:y:2023:i:3:p:1124-1141

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0968-6673

Access Statistics for this article

Gender, Work and Organization is currently edited by David Knights, Deborah Kerfoot and Ida Sabelis

More articles in Gender, Work and Organization from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().