Undoing Impunity: Speech After Sexual Violence

by V. Geetha

Acts of sexual violence are often committed with impunity—perpetrators do not consider their actions consequential. Yet throughout history, impunity for sexual violence has been challenged by fearless, just, and compassionate speech—both in courts of justice and outside of them. Those who speak out not only advance a politics of accountability, but also an ethics of recognition, suffering, and hurt.

Undoing Impunity explores the contours of the politics and ethics pertaining to sexual violence in contemporary South Asian communities. Using a historical lens, V. Geetha closely examines explicitly feminist responses from the region and, drawing from them, suggests that sexual violence and the impunity it claims for itself are best understood in relation to cultural attitudes towards sexuality. In all, Undoing Impunity is an important and timely look at the social, psychological, and legal conditions that allow perpetrators to act without fear of responsibility or guilt. The book forms part of the Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia series, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2016