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Papers by Mahima Taneja

Recognizing Connectedness: The Practice of Feminist Evaluation, 2021

Women and their actions are highly scrutinized in the development sector, due to the widespread b... more Women and their actions are highly scrutinized in the development sector, due to the widespread belief that changing a woman’s behaviour catalyses change in the community’s behaviour. Within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) space, policy and programming narratives around open defecation particularly focus on women. It is assumed that women are natural beneficiaries of WASH schemes and have more to gain by moving away from open defecation practices. However, studies show that cessation of open defecation by women in particular, and the community
in general, is not a given despite the presence of toilets.
This paper is an attempt to identify and acknowledge the assumptions, or what following Batliwala and Dhanraj (2004) we call, gender myths, which underline the current policy and programmatic environment around open defecation. We will argue that current policies and programs largely adopt a gender instrumental approach based on two gender myths – (a) women bring and maintain hygiene and sanitation in the family and (b) women need protection and privacy for their safety and dignity.
As we find in the paper, these gender myths not only determine programmatic approaches, but also evaluation designs and priorities. As a result, more nuanced barriers to latrine use remain uncaptured and unaddressed. We use qualitative studies as well as our own field experiences with WASH evaluations to substantiate this argument.
The last part of the paper engages with feminist evaluation approach and its principles as a viable corrective to current ODE programs and evaluations. It suggests recommendations on how the feminist evaluation approach can be utilized in the domain of sanitation policy in the Indian context.

Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre eBooks, 2020

Women's Studies International Forum, 2019

This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalk... more This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalks and Nirbhaya agitation. Key questions guiding this paper arewhy did Slut Walk Delhi, characterized as a 'movement' against victim blaming and sexual harassment fail to build momentum despite attempts at mobilization? What changed a year later that made Nirbhaya agitation a 'successful mobilization'? In exploring these questions, the paper interrogates the tactics, discursive politics, and impact of these mobilizations on contemporary Indian women's movement; and argues that they mark an important moment of foregrounding debates on affirmative sexuality.

Cafe Dissensus, 2018

In the past two decades, a new form of political assertion has come forth in India focusing more ... more In the past two decades, a new form of political assertion has come forth in India focusing more properly on sexuality in the form of movement and demonstrations such as ‘Slutwalk’ (or Besharmi Morcha), ‘Pink Chaddi Campaign’, ‘Gay Pride Marches’, ‘Kiss
of Love’ marches and ‘Pads Against Sexism’ campaign, which are often organized using the space of new social media. Taking the example of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest, this paper explores some crucial questions: How is social media changing the repertoires of protest practices, especially those around dissident sexuality? What is the politics of the conflictual space of social media, and how is it being mediated? And what are the methodological challenges in archiving the social media? These are some of the questions that this paper grapples with.

Women's Studies International Forum, 2019

This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalk... more This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalks and Nirbhaya agitation. Key questions guiding this paper are-why did Slut Walk Delhi, characterized as a 'move-ment' against victim blaming and sexual harassment fail to build momentum despite attempts at mobilization? What changed a year later that made Nirbhaya agitation a 'successful mobilization'? In exploring these questions , the paper interrogates the tactics, discursive politics, and impact of these mobilizations on contemporary Indian women's movement; and argues that they mark an important moment of foregrounding debates on affirmative sexuality.

Conference Presentations by Mahima Taneja

Living and building the right to the city: experiences in the South. Paris: Paris Nanterre, 2020

In the past few years, urban spaces in India have witnessed eruption of protests and demonstratio... more In the past few years, urban spaces in India have witnessed eruption of protests and demonstrations such as ‘Kiss of Love’, ‘Why Loiter’ and ‘Meet to Sleep’, which apparently unrelated, have been foregrounding and challenging similar issues of gender norms, sexuality and access to urban spaces by presencing dissident bodies to challenge the established police order of the city. However, these moments of resistance and dissident practices have escaped definition and failed to fit into dominant intelligible frameworks of understanding urban citizen action, representative politics and social movements due to their new modalities and tactics. The task of this paper, which will be divided into three broad sections, is to locate these dissident bodies and practices in our immediate context, recover the Rancierian politics in their tactics, and weave them together as, what I argue, significant ‘moments’ in politics of gender and sexuality that help us re-think right to city conceptually.

Recognizing Connectedness: The Practice of Feminist Evaluation, 2021

Women and their actions are highly scrutinized in the development sector, due to the widespread b... more Women and their actions are highly scrutinized in the development sector, due to the widespread belief that changing a woman’s behaviour catalyses change in the community’s behaviour. Within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) space, policy and programming narratives around open defecation particularly focus on women. It is assumed that women are natural beneficiaries of WASH schemes and have more to gain by moving away from open defecation practices. However, studies show that cessation of open defecation by women in particular, and the community
in general, is not a given despite the presence of toilets.
This paper is an attempt to identify and acknowledge the assumptions, or what following Batliwala and Dhanraj (2004) we call, gender myths, which underline the current policy and programmatic environment around open defecation. We will argue that current policies and programs largely adopt a gender instrumental approach based on two gender myths – (a) women bring and maintain hygiene and sanitation in the family and (b) women need protection and privacy for their safety and dignity.
As we find in the paper, these gender myths not only determine programmatic approaches, but also evaluation designs and priorities. As a result, more nuanced barriers to latrine use remain uncaptured and unaddressed. We use qualitative studies as well as our own field experiences with WASH evaluations to substantiate this argument.
The last part of the paper engages with feminist evaluation approach and its principles as a viable corrective to current ODE programs and evaluations. It suggests recommendations on how the feminist evaluation approach can be utilized in the domain of sanitation policy in the Indian context.

Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre eBooks, 2020

Women's Studies International Forum, 2019

This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalk... more This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalks and Nirbhaya agitation. Key questions guiding this paper arewhy did Slut Walk Delhi, characterized as a 'movement' against victim blaming and sexual harassment fail to build momentum despite attempts at mobilization? What changed a year later that made Nirbhaya agitation a 'successful mobilization'? In exploring these questions, the paper interrogates the tactics, discursive politics, and impact of these mobilizations on contemporary Indian women's movement; and argues that they mark an important moment of foregrounding debates on affirmative sexuality.

Cafe Dissensus, 2018

In the past two decades, a new form of political assertion has come forth in India focusing more ... more In the past two decades, a new form of political assertion has come forth in India focusing more properly on sexuality in the form of movement and demonstrations such as ‘Slutwalk’ (or Besharmi Morcha), ‘Pink Chaddi Campaign’, ‘Gay Pride Marches’, ‘Kiss
of Love’ marches and ‘Pads Against Sexism’ campaign, which are often organized using the space of new social media. Taking the example of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest, this paper explores some crucial questions: How is social media changing the repertoires of protest practices, especially those around dissident sexuality? What is the politics of the conflictual space of social media, and how is it being mediated? And what are the methodological challenges in archiving the social media? These are some of the questions that this paper grapples with.

Women's Studies International Forum, 2019

This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalk... more This paper takes a closer look at two significant mass-based feminist movements in India-Slutwalks and Nirbhaya agitation. Key questions guiding this paper are-why did Slut Walk Delhi, characterized as a 'move-ment' against victim blaming and sexual harassment fail to build momentum despite attempts at mobilization? What changed a year later that made Nirbhaya agitation a 'successful mobilization'? In exploring these questions , the paper interrogates the tactics, discursive politics, and impact of these mobilizations on contemporary Indian women's movement; and argues that they mark an important moment of foregrounding debates on affirmative sexuality.

Living and building the right to the city: experiences in the South. Paris: Paris Nanterre, 2020

In the past few years, urban spaces in India have witnessed eruption of protests and demonstratio... more In the past few years, urban spaces in India have witnessed eruption of protests and demonstrations such as ‘Kiss of Love’, ‘Why Loiter’ and ‘Meet to Sleep’, which apparently unrelated, have been foregrounding and challenging similar issues of gender norms, sexuality and access to urban spaces by presencing dissident bodies to challenge the established police order of the city. However, these moments of resistance and dissident practices have escaped definition and failed to fit into dominant intelligible frameworks of understanding urban citizen action, representative politics and social movements due to their new modalities and tactics. The task of this paper, which will be divided into three broad sections, is to locate these dissident bodies and practices in our immediate context, recover the Rancierian politics in their tactics, and weave them together as, what I argue, significant ‘moments’ in politics of gender and sexuality that help us re-think right to city conceptually.