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Privileged Minorities: Syrian Christianity, Gender, and Minority Rights in Postcolonial India
Although demographically a minority in Kerala, India, Syrian Christians are not a subordinated community. They are caste-, race-, and class-privileged, and have long benefitted, both economically and socially, from their privileged position. Focusing on Syrian Christian women, Sonja Thomas explores how this community illuminates larger questions of multiple oppressions, privilege and subordination, racialization, and religion and secularism in India.
In Privileged Minorities, Thomas examines a wide range of sources, including oral histories, ethnographic interviews, and legislative assembly debates, to interrogate the relationships between religious rights and women's rights in Kerala. Using an intersectional approach, and US women of color feminist theory, she demonstrates the ways that race, caste, gender, religion, and politics are inextricably intertwined, with power and privilege working in complex and nuanced ways. By attending to the ways in which inequalities within groups shape very different experiences of religious and political movements in feminist and rights-based activism, Thomas lays the groundwork for imagining new feminist solidarities across religions, castes, races, and classes.
In Privileged Minorities, Thomas examines a wide range of sources, including oral histories, ethnographic interviews, and legislative assembly debates, to interrogate the relationships between religious rights and women's rights in Kerala. Using an intersectional approach, and US women of color feminist theory, she demonstrates the ways that race, caste, gender, religion, and politics are inextricably intertwined, with power and privilege working in complex and nuanced ways. By attending to the ways in which inequalities within groups shape very different experiences of religious and political movements in feminist and rights-based activism, Thomas lays the groundwork for imagining new feminist solidarities across religions, castes, races, and classes.
- GenresGenderNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
Published November 10, 2018
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May 9, 2023
This book is an essential for understanding the history of Syrian Christians in Kerala. Sonja Thomas meticulously examines the status of the said community in the present context by giving a historical insight into the various developments, protests and events that happened which went on to be crucial for the community cementing a status of caste and class privilege.
I loved how the author talks about her faith in Christianity as a South Asian and the people associated with it while growing up in Montana in a mostly white rural community. It's an incredibly helpful account to understand the various issues affecting Christian community in Kerala and the conflicts within different sects which pops up in news almost every day. As somebody who grew up in Kerala and from a non-Christian background this book helped in making sense of the Christian community and its standing today.
I loved how the author talks about her faith in Christianity as a South Asian and the people associated with it while growing up in Montana in a mostly white rural community. It's an incredibly helpful account to understand the various issues affecting Christian community in Kerala and the conflicts within different sects which pops up in news almost every day. As somebody who grew up in Kerala and from a non-Christian background this book helped in making sense of the Christian community and its standing today.
Displaying 1 of 1 review