Carceral feminism and the punitive state in Kerala State, India

Devika Jayakumari

Chapter 9 in Research Handbook on Feminist Political Thought, 2024, pp 193-217 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter is about feminism in Kerala, India and its engagement with the state in the new millennium. Kerala has been prominent in the international discourse of social development, especially for the achievements of its women in literacy and health. Since the 1990s, Kerala has been an interesting instance to observe the inter-workings of state feminism, feminist politics, and civil-social feminisms in the context of unmistakable historical shifts. I argue that the strengthening of the state’s carceral powers ostensibly to deliver justice to female victims of violence has, in the above context, served the increasingly punitive regional state and the ruling left party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which finds it useful to bolster its own version of ‘populist authoritarianism’.

Keywords: Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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