 Thank you, Amanda and Lua for having me and Gita and Jalee for being here and everyone in the audience as well. I know we're all joining from different time zones, so thank you for taking the time to come. I'm going to quickly share my screen and then we can, we can start. You think I would have gotten better at zoom being on zoom for however long I've been on zoom, but it refuses to let me share my screen for some reason. Okay, there we go. I think I finally got it. Okay, I do not know why it refuses to let me share anything. Okay, sorry. I'm going to fix this very quickly because it is showing me no screen as soon as I shared my screen. Okay, maybe you're just going to see it with my comments on the side. Okay, everyone seeing something. Yeah, we can see your PowerPoint presentation but yeah we can. I'm not in presenter view that's all. Oh now it's in presenter view. Okay, amazing. Okay. Hi everyone. As Amanda mentioned, I am a PhD student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where I work on issues of gender and human security. Before I dive into the presentation, I just wanted to sort of put out some feelers and a bit of a trigger warning to know that given the state of the world right now I know we're all overwhelmed and maybe we don't want to talk about violence or hear about violence anymore. I've tried to make sure that I don't actually talk about the specificities of any sorts of violence but I'm trying to talk around the violence or talk about the aftermath of it in terms of activism and changes for law. But if you need to take a break at any point, feel free to do so. Something that's really important to me is practices of care so I don't want to be hypocritical and say you have to stay at the end or you have to make sure you pay attention so if you need to take a break please do that. Something that I think we can we can sort of see, especially in the current moment is that a lot of violence exists side by side with activism and protests that comes in its aftermath. I also think we all have this sense of deja vu sometimes in terms of the aftermath of certain incidents of violence but what now why is it happening again, why is it happening, you know in this current state what do we do. So quickly just start with an exercise that I do and have done so if you've heard me give a variant of this presentation you want. Please don't answer. I'm talking to my flutter cohort who I can see out in the audience. Okay, this is a quote from from, let's say a leading book on rape in India. And my question is, does anyone know when this was written. So quickly read out the quote and if you want to put in your answers in chat. Please do rape is not only a crime against the person of a woman victim. It is a crime against the entire society destroys the entire psychology of a woman and pushes her into deep emotional crises. Only by her share will power that she rehabilitates herself in the society which on coming to know off the tape looks down upon her indigestion and contempt rape is therefore the most hated crime. Does anyone want to take a stab at when this was written. This always gives me a really interesting answer so I'm excited to see what people say anyone. So 1366 2012. Yeah, 2012 is pretty close actually it's from one of the like most well known textbook slash guides on the applause in India and it was actually I think published in 20. It was published in 2017 but I think yes it did come out in 2012. So I think this sort of lays out the context here and sets the stage for how rape and sexual violence are understood in India so from just this one quote we get to sort of to understand notions of shame and notions of patriarchy and what it means to be a victim of violence here in this case a female victim or a woman victim and sort of the heteronormativity around it as well. Yeah so what am I going to talk about today. The United Nations actually says that incidents of rape and sexual violence in India are too many and too often. So sort of shame notions of shame and victim blaming and patriarchy sort of create an environment where gender and sexual violence is largely accepted. Changes in the law have only come in the aftermath of protest or public outcries to sort of spectacular or violent incidents of rape and sexual violence. So by looking at sort of these high profile cases I argue that not only has formal law sort of failed to reduce sexual violence but the very drafting and the application of these laws sort of serves to protect the patriarchal nature of the state and society. Rape law therefore continues to sort of reflect India's patriarchal norms and the mere enactment of seemingly progressive laws that not necessarily lead to positive social impact. I use the lens of slow violence here to explain the patriarchal nature of the law and its relationship to activism and and protest. In terms of a quick blurb on the methodology it's a sort of case study approach I looked through so called landmark cases of rape adjudication sexual violence adjudication. I use sort of contextualism and feminist jurisprudence which is which means essentially that I focus not only on the letter of the law, but also on the doctrinal institutional cultural and social context in which laws are drafted, created and applied. But I also focus on the social norms and the attitudes that underpin these decisions and underpin these laws. Before we get into sort of what what is happening in current day India. It's important to look at what happened in colonial India, because when India gained independence we just took the chunk of the Indian appeal code that existed in colonial India and it's still sort of exists today and we still use some very similar to what happened or what existed in colonial India. So what happened then was that there was sort of two traditional authority structures that existed one was a society where a patriarchal society where men were given predominance and second was the British colonial state as well. So, rape law in colonial India was based on the suspicion of women's claims and a presumed frequency of false charges and the so called peculiarity of the Indian culture will also notice that a lot of colonial laws penal code, but also which exists today is very heteronormative as an assumption that the victim is always a woman and that the perpetrator it's always. So what happened was that victims faced a sort of two fold challenge in courtrooms. Not only was it that there was a presumption of false charges, but there were also kind of colonial ideas about the unreliability of native witnesses. So the onus of proof here was on the victim to prove that they were sexually assaulted that they were. There was a sort of a medical legal approach that was adopted to adjudicating these cases, and it was based on sort of four kinds of evidence that were needed for corroboration. Prior sexual history of the victim, not the perpetrator, the class and caste of the victim, immediacy of the complaint and signs of physical resistance. And we'll see that a lot of this still perpetuates and exist today, not only in India and not only in lots of post colonial states but, but elsewhere as well. And there was this factor of doubt that that sort of existed around older women and women of lower caste. So, in a lot of cases I'm not going to get into specificities for time but happy to get into it in the Q&A. You could see that in cases if you were younger, you were more likely to have the judge side with you. If you were of a higher caste, you were more likely to have the judge side with you if there were sort of signs of physical resistance that proved non-consent. The better you were sort of helped and supported and the immediacy of the complaint also mattered. Did you complain as soon as it happened? Did you take a couple of weeks? What did that mean? Did that mean you made it up? So the institutional treatment of rape was sort of contradictory. In the letter or on paper, punishments were harsh, but in practice plaintiffs were rigorously interrogated. And it was not necessarily the perpetrators or the defendants that were interrogated. The onus of proof again was on the victim to prove non-consent, to prove that they resisted, to prove that they were not in the wrong, that they were not sort of lying and making up things in the aftermath of consensual acts of sex. In independent India then, as I said earlier, we just sort of took the scaffolding of the law that existed and put it into our constitution and into our penal code. So I'm going to talk through sort of five so-called landmark cases and what that did to change the law if it did help to change the law. The first was the was the Mathura case of 1979 or the Thukaram was the state of Maharashtra. So what happened there was that a woman of a lower caste was raped in custody, in police custody. And she was acquitted, the victims, sorry, the defendants were acquitted by the Supreme Court due to lack of physical evidence. And this sort of rested on the notion that she was habituated to sex and had a loose moral character. I'm not going to talk about the two finger test because I think it's disgusting, but it still exists. Basically, the defendants were acquitted because of this sort of horrendous test called the two finger test that test can, assumingly test whether or not you are a virgin or whether you're habituated to sex and sex or not. So in the aftermath of this acquittal, there were large scale protests by feminist organizations throughout the country. And there were amendments made to the law. Custodial rape was added as a category of aggravated rape and the burden of proof shifted to the defendants. So it's only in 1979 that the burden of proof shifted. The second case is the Hildge Bay versus state of Gujarat case, which was in 1983. Here is really interesting to note that the Supreme Court said that corroboration is unnecessary. But this corroboration or this claim was based on a cultural claim that Indian woman would not lie. It was said that in the Indian context, corroboration is unnecessary because victims would not lie because they know the stigma and the shame that it would bring to their families. Ergo, there would not lie. Ergo corroboration is unnecessary. This case was 96, which was the Goodmeat Singh case. Here, the victim was a young girl, she was below the age of 16. The law court sort of dismissed the case because they said she was habituated and she had a loose character. You'll see that this notion of loose character and being habituated to sexual violence, to sex or sexual violence comes up a lot. So they said consent was immaterial. It's went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said consent was immaterial because she was below the age of 16. And that there was a delay in filing because of the stigma that was associated. Again, this sort of cultural claim that there's a lot of stigma associated, which is why the family waited and sort of complained later. Then in 2012 we have the Nibbaya gang rape, which led to the Justice Varma Committee and the Criminal Law Amendment of 2013. It broadened the definition of rape, increased the age of consent, added clauses and cases of aggravated rape. And it also broadened the definition interestingly beyond heterodomative notions of sexual violence for the first time. And then we have the Kathwa and Unaw rapes in 2017 and 2018, which led to the government making changes, adding a death penalty for rape of girls. Again, not girls below the age of 12. It increased the minimum punishment of rape and there was no change in sort of rape or capital of boys and as I said this notion of capital punishment sort of perpetuated and increased. Okay, so we're going to talk through this through this lens of slow violence. So what is slow violence? Slow violence is a sort of concept that was converted by the scholar of the environmental humanities called Rob Nixon. So according to Rob Nixon, slow violence is violence that occurs gradually and is dispersed across space and time. And the sort of notions of unspectacular violence or unspectacularity are sort of kept out of sight. So the everyday reality of sort of slower forms of violence or these sort of unspectacular forms of violence go unnoticed. The only time that we pay attention to these sort of forms of violence is when it's impact is sensationalized. And while structural violence, which is something we've talked about earlier, and has existed as a concept for a few decades is concerned primarily with issues of causation and agency. Slow violence also takes into consideration issues of temporality representation and scale. So Rob Nixon also notes the importance of writer activists. And by highlighting the unspectacular and sort of rendering the invisible visible and representing the invisible, we can sort of overcome this representational bias against slow violence. Okay, so what are the layers of violence here and what does it mean in terms of slow violence. So one is that this largely medical legal approach that we've taken today sort of downplays the gender relations of power that exists. And what it does is makes sexual violence treatable innocence is sort of makes a victim worthy and the onus here again is on proving non consent. As I said earlier, in terms of representation and the invisibility here. There's a variety of victims and who counts as a victim or a casualty. So writer activists here have an important role in sort of amplifying marginal voices and highlighting and highlighting these cases of slow violence. So in terms of the layers of violence is there's multiple is not only the acts of violence that matter in terms of the sexual violence but also the violence that exists in terms of being rendered invisible to be un unworthy of attention or unworthy of, of a response. It's being sidelined, as well as sort of being constrained by the structures of the state and the law that see you in certain ways or see your victim hood or violence or your status based on issues of onus of proof and consent. So this sort of symbiotic relationship between the state society and culture to support patriarchy creates this sort of gendered landscape or this kind of state. So the patriarchal nature of the law is unspectacular because it's workings are not sensational or hyper visible. The only time that we pay attention to the law or we pay attention to sexual violence is when it's impact is sensationalized. When we look back to that slide on independent India and that timeline. It was those cases that that were so grotesque or so violent that they led to public protest and public outcry and activist showing up on the streets that it led to some change in the law. Only when it seems so in your face and so apparent that this form of violence exists that we are ready to make that the state and the and the judiciary are ready to make some change, but even then, even when this change is made and so called made progressive or made better. It's still run through patriarchal notions or it's still party to patriarchal notions about shame stigma, non consent and things like that. So the prosecution then of banal crime that could sort of address underlying social, economic and political challenges or cultural challenges are sidelined by more evil crimes. So we see that in the aftermath of the Nepal case with the death with capital punishment. That was the focus like oh now now that we have capital punishment and these few bad apples are got have gotten rid of we've gotten rid of them. Now we can move on with we can move on as a society or we can move on as a country but we see that that doesn't necessarily change anything because we're focusing on these few bad apples rather than the larger scaffolding at play that exists that creates a society that is accepting of certain forms of violence whether or not it is whether or not is seen as spectacular or not. So reforms have been instituted on the back of these sort of high profile cases that received a lot of public scrutiny. The flurry of state responsiveness with legal reforms fast track cases harsh punishments, but these follow long periods of inaction and state of school. And again the focus here is on these spectacular cases of sexual violence it's not the everyday forms of violence that exists in a patriarchal society it's not on Eve teasing which is a catch all term that we use in South Asia for violence it's not on sort of sitting on a bus and being grouped it's not about being a 10 year old child standing on the street and having someone blow kisses that you repeatedly it's not on sort of policing having to police yourself in the aftermath of these violent cases of violence and sexual violence. It's not about the victims or the potential victims having to police themselves. So, another layer of violence that exists here is coverage of sexual assault and rape. It's limited it doesn't engage again with the root causes of violence in society same that the law doesn't the media coverage doesn't. The use is either on being a crime breeze which are sort of matter of fact, or sensationalized stories in terms of the breaking news the Arnab Goswami of the world screaming in your face that this is something to think about it, usually also engages in the victim as the media continues to be plagued by patriarchal attitudes because if society is patriarchal its institutions are going to be patriarchal as well. It's largely focused again in terms of a representational bias on assaults or violence against urban English speaking middle class and upper caste women. Not only is it creating sort of marginalized groups in its focus in terms of whose rapes matter and who sexual violence matters and who counts as a victim. It's also again as I said, creating people whose voices are not heard for whose sexual violence doesn't matter as much as others because it wasn't spectacular enough or it wasn't gruesome or grotesque enough. Again here, as you can see the focus again is very very heteronormative. I can see that I am already at 20 minutes I'm going to just speed through the rest, which is just one more slide. So something essentially when we look at sexual violence and the sort of slow violence of all of it is what is seen, and what is made possible or what is visible when we widen our focus and frame so this is part of a larger project, which is my dissertation, which is about how sexual activism around sexual violence, sorry feminist activism around sexual violence is undertaken and sustained during these periods of low public attention. So is is the form of activism different is it when we have high public attention we're focusing on changing the law and sort of larger structures at play. And we have low periods of public attention we're focusing on more on the ground grassroots programming and behavioral change or, or how we report about violence in media tool kits. And related to that is how activists sustain themselves in each other, while working on these issues of that are sensitive and dramatic and where change is slow when change seems like we know what needs to be done but it isn't getting done and what is the burden that exists when you're working on something that is heavy and that you know needs change but isn't getting changed. So the project then is about sustaining not only a movement towards activism and change around sexual violence but being able to sustain ourselves as well. So the focus is not, not only on responses to sexual violence but sort of practices of care that exist around it as well. And I'm happy to chat about that further. Finally, here is, if you've seen Twitter you know this hullabaloo that's happening around whether citation matters and academic writing and narrative. So here is a brief geography. I'm going to sort of note whose work I'm drawing on and whose work I want to be in conversation with. And yeah I'm going to stop now so if you have any questions. Happy to take them. If you have any comments I'm happy to hear them. I'm going to stop sharing now so that I can see everyone better than not just starting at my own presentation. Thank you so much to Pali for an amazing presentation. I guess we'll, we'll get the floor over to Jutan Jali now to comment. And if people want to ask questions also please feel free to do them on the chat, or on the q amp a or maybe later raise your hand. Thank you very much. Thank you for this opportunity to be able to comment on such a brilliant presentation. It's great. I really enjoyed hearing you speak today to Pali but also I had the pleasure of reading your chapter in advance so I had an advantage there. I really enjoyed it the things that I particularly liked about your presentation and your chapter are. I like the way that you use the concept of slow violence and I think it's really good way to think about the ways in which the violence that women experience, not only through sexual abuse and sexual violence on a day to day basis is normalized. Because of the way that what might be seen, or what are considered extreme cases of violence are highlighted so the everyday cases then become even more unremarkable, as it were. I was wondering though within that whether you were considering using Vinadas' ideas again of critical events as well. I myself have used it around issues around sexual violence and I've chosen the Mathura rape case, the Bhavidevi rape case and the obviously the Jyoti Singh rape case as well, particularly because of the way in which it has led to changes in law. And that's what I've pinned it to and I'm not suggesting for a minute that you do that because that's unnecessary. But in you might consider using the broader concept of critical events, though you already might have considered it and discarded it for very good reasons. I was also thinking that when you are talking about the development of feminist activism around these issues. When I'm thinking about the development of rape law, you could also consider looking at the development of rape judgments. When you started speaking when you talked about deja vu it particularly spoke to me because I part of me whenever I hear about another rape case in India, I think my first responses. It's happened again and again and again and again and it never stops and the more it changes the more it seems to happen. And it has a sort of repetition in a way which is kind of can be quite soul destroying if you like particularly for activists, but even for people who are researching on the subject or reading on the subject. And that then becomes one of the reasons why people don't want to talk about it, because it becomes almost emotionally too much, if you like so the repetition of violence and the repetition of narrations which means that the really important testimonies of the so called everyday acts of violence get lost within that because actually there's no space in which we might hear them, if you like. I also liked how you put together shame, honour and victim blaming, but also celebration of the perpetrator. That's kind of goes hand in hand and that we can see that in some of the cases around the sort of me to movement. Where you've got this, the perpetrator being excused and celebrated in different ways, almost and actually, you know, there was a late, there's a tweet I read recently about somebody looking at where some of, you know, because the idea that there was this sort of naming of people in the need to movement was unfair because it doesn't follow process, it doesn't follow, you know, and it's just basically, what's the word for it. It destroys reputations, it can destroy the lives of men, but actually this tweet has brought as looked at how actually not much has changed for the men, the sort of alleged perpetrators but they've actually been doing quite well. So that kind of thing about how the shame of speaking out, it's victim blaming but when women speak out there then shamed for speaking out about something like this. Also like the idea of contextual Judas prudence and the importance of culture and structure within that. You talked about heteronormativity within law and of course that's really, really important. I was wondering and this is a direct question for you the Pali. You talk about it, I would just like you to elaborate a little bit more on how you think how and why in your opinion that is a problem. Do you believe that feminists have addressed this adequately or not in the Indian context. So that's one of the things that I'd like you to perhaps talk about a little bit if you can or think about whatever, you know, the diversity or slow violence really really important. Another thing that perhaps you may like to consider is the me to movement and the activism around that. And I just wonder whether you believe that the listing out or the speaking out of women in the sort of, I found it particularly moving during the meet to. Because the times when the men were all they were doing was putting me to with a hashtag on their Facebook and Twitter page and I thought that was incredibly powerful and moving. And I was wondering whether that has changed the slow violence discourse or whether it has something like that has the potential to change the slow violence discourse where it becomes apparent. And then they make this problem is and speaking out about it, even though you get shamed for speaking out becomes could be in itself become an act of resistance and we're not doing it alone. And last point again around sustaining and caring so caring for each other caring for the activists. So, within that of course there's self care, and the issues around vicarious trauma, but also for the for you know, the caring for people who are working in the sector how do they take care of themselves. Even more of an issue sometimes of course when it comes to online activism because that can be, you know, doing the sort of online work can be really awful, and can feel really difficult being attacked by strangers or even people you know. And there's always a lot of potential for misunderstanding so how do we speak to each other in online spaces in a way that's actually supportive. I don't know I mean I just wanted to give you a few things to think about so I hope they've been useful. Thank you. Sorry. Amanda do you want me to take a few minutes to respond or do we want to open up to audience. Yeah, it's probably take a few minutes to respond and then we've got a few questions but maybe they'll give the audience a bit warm of time to ask if they have. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments. I don't know if you could see but while you were talking, I was literally shaking and I still kind of am because I feel very nervous when I'm getting feedback because I think someone is just going to tell me they hate everything I do that I don't. They're just like leave, please leave now. So I'm happy, happy that you gave me constructive feedback and I think it's important to get constructive feedback from people everywhere. Because it shows you that we all think completely differently and we have different ways of approaching things. In terms of using Vena Das's work, I do I didn't use it in in in this presentation. Because I sort of use slow violence as a framing framing concept here but I think you're right in sort of use using the notion of critical events because I think it is tied to whether or it's sort of tied to the spectacularity of violence in a sense, or into these sort of conjectures or, or inflection points that we see in terms of changing the law. I completely get you when you said it's sort of soul destroying to do this work and not only as an activist but as a researcher as well and thinking about sort of the spaces where we can, we can sort of give each other time to accept what we're doing and also give each other a break from it is really important and when you talked about sort of care and vicarious trauma and secondhand trauma this this came to my mind so initially my PhD was only about the first question it was only about sort of how activism sustains itself when there's not sort of public attention or public momentum to do things, but in the space of the last couple of years doing this research on a day to day basis. Before pandemic is sort of brought to light issues of, okay, if I am someone who researches this and doesn't actually talk to people about violence, or about specific kinds of violence on a day to day basis or is not dealing with victims of violence on a day to day basis and I feel so burnt out by it and I feel so upset by it. How must an activist feel or how must a victim who potentially could turn into an activist or has done into an activist feel. And that's when I sort of came upon this growing literature off of, you know, sort of an ethic of care, and it sort of struck me that it sort of is related the momentum or the lack of momentum and the violence that we're seeing or the violence that we're talking about is related to what we put into the movement. And if we're not able to, in terms of, in terms of the analogy of putting on your oxygen mask first before helping someone else if I'm not able to put on my own oxygen mask not going to be able to make much change, not only for others but also for myself so I definitely see the two as related the kinds of activism we can do the kinds of change we can create related to whether or not we can sustain ourselves and take ourselves in doing so. And I, and I'm also thinking about when you said notions of self care but also thinking beyond sort of these neoliberal assumptions of self care. And, and what it means to deal with community care and to deal with. Okay, this is a structural thing that we're told to keep going the productivity matters that not only in academia of course but in a capital, capitalistic society that is what sort of defines our work, what does it mean then to take a break to have to say, no it's important that I take time for myself or I take time for X, Y and Z to support them through this. When you talk about the celebration of the perpetrator and sort of the excuses that we make for perpetrators it, it did get me thinking about that Twitter thread that we're talking about about if I if I am getting it right to sort of, if people were named and shamed, they went out of the limelight for a little while but now they're back with their own Netflix comedy specials or they're back to directing movies or they're back to, you know, winning their indie or best footballer of the year things is yes there's, there's in this patriarchal notion, or in this patriarchal society there is this tendency to sort of celebrate the perpetrator and excuse them at times as well because you know, they're, you know, they're a cricketer or oh they're a Bollywood superstar that, you know, brings money into an industry or brings money in terms of tourism or things like that. And so, this is definitely something I think I need to do more on in terms of adding that this is another layer of slow violence this is the fact that we're allowing certain people to continue doing what they do, but in a sense it is victims or potential victims who are then policing themselves, or having to police themselves. In terms of heteronormativity, and whether feminist activism has done a good job. I'm not sure if feminist activism has done a good job I think this because of the way the Indian feminist movement exists in terms of the gap between what happens in Delhi with the middle class to upper class. Mostly women engaging in activism as opposed to the more rural or non Delhi activists. Not only divide in terms of what they care about but also in terms of movements not learning from each other or learning with each other. And I'm thinking through the sodomy laws and what that also meant and how much we could learn from each other. I think there's some acceptance now that that the law is heteronormative. I also think given our current moment. I think it's easier to sort of say we're going to put that on the back burner and focus on things that will bring more coalition building. If I remember right I saw Sheila in the audience now and I know that she has this notion of assemblages and protest assemblages and what does it mean to then create coalition with people that don't necessarily see things the same way but may have similar goals in mind. So what does it mean to have the right leaning activists that think violence against women is bad but may not see the patriarchal notion of all of that. And what does it mean that they're willing to sort of strengthen the law which in more senses means make punishment harsher but do not see that other forms of violence which are not centered around the woman and not just heteronormative exist. So yeah I think that's definitely something that I'm going to be thinking about. And lastly is is the notion of being online and what it means in terms of activism. I think it's definitely become easier for people to name and shame but also to sort of claim that identity or claim. What happened to them online through an anonymity but also otherwise, I think there's also a flip side, which is, and in the lead up to business was my number one fear was that a lot of trolls would just turn up to the zoom event and be telling things about the work that I do because it's it's it's a harsh reality that I'm, I think a lot of us feel in researching sort of feminist issues and researching certain things that the minority, the minority majority in our country think across the world, think is not worthy of attention or is not worthy of importance and what that means in terms of policing ourselves again and I think it all comes back to that notion of having to police ourselves or police others behavior. When it's not resting on what perpetrators do but one of what victims or potential victims can or cannot do. I don't know if I can stop that because I know that our questions. But thank you. Thank you. It's really good response. Thank you. Yes, we have a few questions, probably, I think one of them you started to answer in this sense of how do you go, you know about extensively writing reading and doing research on rape and sexual violence while making sure to care for yourself that's a question from you. And I might I'm going to go through some of the questions and then you can you can give some some comments on whatever you want. Also sing duja is thanking you for this amazing presentation she, so do you love the use of Nixon's slow violence to discuss the unspectacular aspects of gender violence. So Cindy wants to know wondering if if or slash how you are thinking about the slow burning impacts of the law laws themselves. Dipty is also thanking you for this fascinating conversation it's a really different way to engage with this realities of violence in India. Dipty is also thinking about being an activist researcher and is wondering how we can engage with this from the non landmark silence realities. Say such as the rape cases in places with Afspa and militarization in the peripheries. And finally, so, Srila is also thanking you and didn't get them jelly. I would love to know a bit about the anti gender based violent activists, activism you have in mind who are they and how they engage in their everyday work. The difference temporalities of violence slow spectacular and taking care of others as well as the self also amazing questions. Thank you everyone. The floor is yours. Thank you, everybody for the helpful comments and questions. I want to. I know I'm looking at the time and I know they don't have much time so I'm going to quickly try to go through these things but if I can't I am happy to chat further slash email slash send, you know, carry a pigeons to each other. The first question on in terms of dealing with writing about and doing research on rape and sexual violence. How do I go about it. Not. I think it depends on the day. I think some days I'm much better at creating distance and knowing that I need to take a break and some days, not so much. I highly recommend therapy. I think as a graduate student but also someone researching sexual violence, I think it is very helpful, but I know that it obviously therapy is paid and it's not necessarily reachable to most people, but to find practices that help you. If you noticed but one of the previous slides had an illustration that I did that is something that has really helped me is taking time and sort of illustrating through my thoughts and feelings. My dream is one day to publish a graphic novel but I think that may be asking for too much at this point at this point I just need to finish my dissertation. I think the importance of community is really central to sort of making sure you care for yourself and take breaks. I think that's something I think about a lot and keep having to change whether based on the day whether or not I'm dealing with it well or dealing with it poorly or not as well. Synduja's question on sort of the deadly impacts that are sustained over time. Yeah, I think there's obviously a slow burning impact to the law, whether I guess lack of law in some cases or the poor adjudication of law. And I think that that leads again as I mentioned to, I guess people policing themselves, and usually it becomes potential victims and victims policing themselves whether that means they have a growing distrust in the state and the law whether it means, you know, carrying a spray in your bag every time you leave or policing yourself in terms of for not going to go out alone at this time of night or things like that. I think that is something that sustains itself, but I think also the impact is also that there's a lot of burnout, there's a lot of sort of discomfort or unhappiness around doing this work and wanting to change the law and then seeing it not changed and that leads to people not knowing what to do with this state of it can get better so easily or in concrete ways but we're just not doing it. And I think that is an impact as well of slow violence that it just makes it harder and harder to create change. What are the other questions. I wonder how we can engage with non landmark silence realities. Yes, I did a poor job of explaining it but in the chapter slash paper I also talk about sort of this notion of borderlands and who is a worthy victim and the fact that in cases of Afs power or marital rape. The fact that when these people may not even be allowed to claim victimhood is a kind of silence or is a kind of violence in and of itself that certain people matter more or are deemed more worthy of attention than others. And I think that falls well into this notion of this representational bias that exists because of slow violence. I see she last question in terms of who are they and how do they engage. So I sort of in my dissertation work backwards on the methodology office to given the pandemic I haven't been actually able to do fieldwork and I'm hoping finally now to start fieldwork in the next couple of months and I because I think I sort of come from the notion that for a long time feminist thought changing the law would would sort of create lasting impact and would make a change. That's how I started it looks at organizations that that's that work on legal reform or work with victims in the judiciary or around their cases and then do other things as well. I'm also very cognizant of the fact that a lot of the focus on feminist activism around sexual violence in India has been on the sort of Delhi middle class to upper class women or super hyper local rural cases of it. There's not enough about other cities or other parts of the country where one, we're not getting attention in terms of sexual violence that happens there, or that the focus is on other forms of activism or other forms of, of violence. I'm going to quickly move on to the other question but I'm happy to chat about the sort of the sampling of all of this, because I'm hoping that it will be a interpretive ethnographic study. So it's going to take me some time but I'm also country in the process of my ID finally so there's a lot of moving parts around here but I'm happy to chat for the. Thank you for returning to the question who merits and who does not merit feminist solidarity and indeed. How does that relate to hierarchies of victimhood. Yes rock signings work is amazing in case anyone hasn't read it, I highly recommend it. And she went to butter, not all victims of sexual violence are equal or treated equally and who makes this fear of feminist activism. I think he's a victim who definitely I think there's something I speak about in terms of the representational, I guess bias of all of it, but also knowing then because the focus is on spectacularity that if you are a victim of this sort of spectacular violence you're able to claim the victimhood space that that creates in terms of getting attention or being worthy of being named or being given space in beyond that yes it's clear that people are not treated equally that obviously we're focused here on sexual violence is on the gruesome sexual assault. But not on the rape, but not on the more banal forms of, you know, banal but not really banal forms of sluts shaming that exist in terms of trolling or in terms of policing someone what someone wears or. You know, the, the uncomfortable classes you get on buses and things like that. So I think they definitely is a victim board in terms of the hierarchy sorry in terms of who makes up the spheres of feminist activism. And how they're positioned and networked. This is something that I am sort of thinking about actively and struggling with a little bit because I think I'm cognizant of the fact that I don't want to name someone a feminist group or a feminist activist and when they may not necessarily be, but also knowing that there is these sort of uneasy coalitions that exist, for example between, you know, right wing groups that think they can police women's behavior and air go one changes to the law but are not feminist. For me, I guess the question in terms of feminist activism always comes back to looking at whether they're looking at gendered notions of power and gendered notions of violence and whether that exists and I'm very clear or very cognizant of the fact that that may differ from person to person, but also that hopefully it means in terms of internal validity as long as I can justify that they are feminist activists in my understanding that that may be good for now. I think that was a very bad way to answer the question but thank you for giving me something to think about something more to think about. Another for job answering this very tough questions. I'm glad I gave you something else to think about. Amanda, do we have anything else can that you'd like to share. Well, other than I'm sad we're running out of time, because this is such an important conversation and difficult one to have and, you know, I thank you to Polly, and you also eat and jolly and, you know, people who do this sort of work it's certainly not easy, but it's really important and I look forward to seeing your work in publication form to you, and just deep gratitude to both of you for coming and being a part of the seminar series, and also for the audience for coming along and asking those important questions. So I've said by peace. Well, I'll pass it over to you. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, the Polly, Gigi and Tali and everyone who joined us. I share on the chat a little bit earlier today the FTGS Twitter the website and also the following series that we have for the global voice seminar. I know please follow us and come to the following seminars that we're going to have. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you to Polly for such an honest and open and truth share and everything that you expose here today. Thank you Gigi and Tali for your time and comments and thank you everyone. I hope you all have a good rest of the day afternoon or a good night. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody for coming and taking the time.