By Shraddha Chigateri, Mubashira Zaidi and Anweshaa Ghosh

This research seeks to address the question of when and why the state in India responds to women’s claims making by foregrounding the mobilisations of women’s groups on two issues: anti-rape laws and domestic work. In particular, it analyses the relationship between women’s claims making and laws and policies, especially focusing on the issues around which mobilisations take place, the processes and strategies of claims making by women’s groups, and the processes through which the changes in laws and policies occur. The research addresses these concerns at both a national level, as well as two subnational levels, Gujarat and Karnataka. It also compares the differences and similarities in mobilisations, structural configurations, actors and coalitions between the two issue areas, and across the levels (national and subnational).

Institute of Social Studies Trust, New Delhi, April 2016, 226p.

By Nancy Whittier

The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse is the first study of activism against child sexual abuse, tracing its emergence in feminist anti-rape efforts, its development into mainstream self-help, and its entry into mass media and public policy. Nancy Whittier deftly charts the development of the movement's "therapeutic politics," demonstrating that activists viewed tactics for changing emotions and one's sense of self as necessary for widespread social change and combined them with efforts to change institutions and the state. Though activism originated with feminists, the movement grew and spread to include the goals of non-feminist survivors, opponents, therapists, law enforcement, and elected officials. In the process, the movement both succeeded beyond its wildest dreams and saw its agenda transformed in ways that were sometimes unrecognizable. A moving account, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse draws powerful lessons about the transformative potential of therapeutic politics, their connection to institutions, and the processes of incomplete social change that characterize American politics today

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. 273p.