Hijras, Lovers, Brothers: Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India

Hijras,Lovers,Brothers is an ethnography by Vaibhav Saria that explores two years of living with a group of hijras in rural India. It challenges the easy framings of hijras as marginalized and shows how they make the normative Indian family possible. It also reveals a specific idiom of erotic asceticism that informs their everyday lives and offers a repertoire of self-fashioning beyond the secular horizons of public health or queer theory.

Format: Hardback
Length: 268 pages
Publication date: 18 May 2021
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Winner,2023 Bernard S. Cohn Prize,Association for Asian Studies
Winner,2021 Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences
Winner,2021 Ruth Benedict Prize,Association for Queer Anthropology
Honorable Mention,2023 Anne Bolin & Gil Herdt Book Prize,Human Sexuality & Anthropology Interest Group

Hijras, one of India's third-gendered or trans populations, have been an enduring presence in the South Asian imagination, often associated in stigmatized forms with begging and sex work. In more recent years, hijras have seen a degree of political emergence as a moral presence in Indian electoral politics, and with heightened vulnerability within global health terms as a high-risk population caught within the AIDS epidemic.

Hijras, Lovers, Brothers recounts two years living with a group of hijras in rural India. In this riveting ethnography, Vaibhav Saria reveals not just a group of stigmatized or marginalized others but a way of life composed of laughter, struggles, and desires that trouble how we read queerness, kinship, and the psyche. Against easy framings of hijras that render them marginalized, Saria shows how hijras make the normative Indian family possible. The book also shows that particular practices of hijras, such as refusing to use condoms or comply with retroviral regimes, reflect not ignorance, irresponsibility, or illiteracy but rather a specific idiom of erotic asceticism arising in both Hindu and Islamic traditions. This idiom suffuses the densely intertwined registers of erotics, economics, and kinship that inform the everyday lives of hijras and offer a repertoire of self-fashioning beyond the secular horizons of public health or queer theory. Engrossingly written and full of keen insights, the book moves from the theoretical to the practical, offering a roadmap for understanding and supporting the lives of hijras in India and beyond.

In conclusion, Hijras, Lovers, Brothers is a groundbreaking work that challenges our understanding of gender, sexuality, and kinship. Saria's ethnography offers a rich and nuanced portrait of a community that has been marginalized and stigmatized for centuries. Through his vivid storytelling and insightful analysis, Saria shows how hijras make the normative Indian family possible and how their practices reflect a specific idiom of erotic asceticism that informs their everyday lives. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in gender, sexuality, and social justice, and it offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complexities of contemporary India.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780823294701