Q. Manivannan | University of St Andrews (original) (raw)

Papers by Q. Manivannan

Routledge Handbook of Masculinities , 2025

This chapter queers masculinities in India’s Citizenship Amendment Act protests, viewing photogra... more This chapter queers masculinities in India’s Citizenship Amendment Act protests, viewing photographs by the late photojournalist Danish Siddiqui of a Hindutva gunman and the Delhi police. Viewing queering as an act of imagining ‘other ways to be’, the chapter relies on queer masculinities scholarship as well as visual international relations to extend insights from conflict settings to a Third World protest site. Considering Danish, the shooter, and the police, the chapter extends Myerhoff’s theory of the cracked mirror, uses imagework, and imagines ourselves in their place. Through this act of queering through imagework, the author presents a more caring mode of understanding and re-membering perpetrators of violence, contributing to a peacebuilding perspective that accounts for vulnerability alongside violence.

International Feminist Journal of Politics

Care conversations Q Manivannan (they/them/theirs), a Dipali Anumol (she/her/hers), b Sinduja Raj... more Care conversations Q Manivannan (they/them/theirs), a Dipali Anumol (she/her/hers), b Sinduja Raja (she/her/hers), c Dipti Tamang (she/her/hers), d Khushi Singh Rathore (she/her/hers), e Emma Louise Backe (she/her/hers), f and Laura J. Shepherd (she/her/hers) g

Economic and Political Weekly, 2022

Scholars of protests must think of how they can give back to the communities they are studying an... more Scholars of protests must think of how they can give back to the communities they are studying and drawing knowledge from.

The article reviews the Farmers’ Protests and the CAA-NRC-NPR protests in India from Third World ... more The article reviews the Farmers’ Protests and the CAA-NRC-NPR protests in India from Third World and feminist approaches to peace studies, international relations, and political science by reviewing the role of religious minorities in religious reform via their participation in these social movements. It broadens the definitions for religious reform and roots itself in narratives in the Global South by archiving modes of protest and resistance, the contributions of the communities to liberative religious practices, and the role of faith practices and care in enabling more robust modes of peacebuilding amidst oppressive legislative violences. It examines the role of identity for multiple interlocutors and actors in the protests from the media, the government, political parties, activists, non-activists, women, and caregivers in contributing to communal counter-narratives and studies the role of contesting masculinities and femininities in reworking histories of polarization. By reviewing these histories of polarization, it provides newer lenses to which reform can be approached, specifically with respect to the practice of langar by Sikh farmers, caregiving and worship by Muslim women in Shaheen Bagh, and their significance in challenging the capitalist and masculine authority of a neoliberal Hindutva state. To do so, it takes from the scholarship of legal academics, TWAIL scholars (and their associated metaphors), South Asian scholars, and scholars from underrepresented and exploited communities and regions from the Third World. It additionally critiques the construct of citizenship as inherently exclusionary and posits the need for future research and activism to make space for faith practices not only as personal acts of worship but as public and political acts of social, legal, and political transformation.

China-India Relations, 2020

This chapter makes an attempt to provide a critical feminist economic historiography of two count... more This chapter makes an attempt to provide a critical feminist economic historiography of two countries, China and India in their post reform years. Specifically, it considers the post-reform growth experiences for India (post 1990) and China (post 1978), present indicators between the year 2000 and 2015 on female labour force participation, sector-wise gendered distribution of labour, and unemployment, and finally attempts to present a feminist outlook towards development narratives. While studying the growth pathways towards a more inclusive development for all, our research hopes to combine past experiences to consider an ungendered future to economics, yet at the same time, we are conscious and cognizant of lived realities, histories of oppression and exclusion of women and minority groups in each country’s own respective histories. Our findings suggest the need for sustainable long-term policymaking that addresses the stark differentiation between brawn-based ‘masculine’ labour and care-based ‘feminine’ work. This requires a cultural and social transformation of the stigma associated with male participation in the care economy and domestic labour, alongside the incentivization of female land-ownership, and the lifting ofvgendered socio-legal restrictions

Political violence and international law scholarship have critically engaged with pluralistic fra... more Political violence and international law scholarship have critically engaged with pluralistic frameworks for jus in bello conduct, negotiating multi-party conflicts and shifting dynamics of actors in a quest for reducing biodiversity loss and environmental degradation as collateral damage. The Sino-Indian border conflict is a part of a complex configuration, interacting with ethno-nationalist and secessionist movements for autonomy and liberation in the Northeast Indian regions. In these conflicts, tribal groups form a large identity category being primary actors who possess an intrinsic cultural and historical connection to the environment, with established practices of sustainable conservation and coexistence. This paper considers local jurisprudence to analyze the draft principles for the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict provisionally adopted by the International Law Commission in its 71 st session, with respect to key definitions, the cultural value of forestry, wildlife and biodiversity in relation to tribal communities who are active participants in armed conflict, and provides a critique of environmental paternalistic trends within the same. The paper uses critical texts such as Christopher Stone's "Should Trees Have Standing?" in conversation with international environmental law in armed conflict, to craft an alternative subaltern paradigm, studying the case of the Bodoland Conflict and proximate Sino-Indian border conflict. It argues for governments and international governing bodies to take into cognizance cognitive justice in the North East Indian context. It hopes to provide tangible pathways to better understand the unique relationship between the environment and tribal communities, in relation to conflict management and transformation.

Fortune India, 2019

A brief analysis published on Fortune India

India's 500-rupee and 1000-rupee currency notes were demonetized by the government in November 20... more India's 500-rupee and 1000-rupee currency notes were demonetized by the government in November 2016. The titular depiction of it as an economic crisis stems from a feminist and subaltern perspective, that considers the peripheral groups suffering and not merely the comparatively scarce economic and social losses experienced by the upper-middle class and the upper-class citizens. In viewing the period and its ill-effects on the lives and economies surrounding the rural Indian woman, in considering the lived experience which invalidates the assumptions of a Hobbesian 'state of nature' that is the foundation of a homo economicus. From the view of the educated urban citizen, the demonetization was justified so long as their personal suffering was minimized. A few deaths, the destruction of communities and livelihoods, and the disproportionate harm caused to those not in the dominant male-gender was inconsequential, subconsciously and consciously branded as collateral-damage for the greater good of the Indian economy, and the elimination of black money (neither of which the demonetization achieved). The paper will use George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton's notion of identity and its role in affecting economic outcomes to use gender identity and analyze the effects of demonetization on women and transgender persons. I begin with a brief literature review of identity bias and the theoretical consideration of gender, as articulated by Akerlof and Kranton, the importance for feminist perspectives on crisis situations as mentioned by M. Bjornholt, and will provide data regarding the economic status and types of personal savings kept by women and transgender people in India. Following this, the data will be analyzed to view the effects that demonetization had on the savings of the aforementioned groups, and the role of women and transgender people as subjects of the crisis. The paper utilizes information only from secondary sources, and thus its limitations arising from this will be discussed prior to the conclusion. The paper will not provide a conclusion on the effectiveness of demonetization on the Indian economy or lack thereof, nor will it consider GDP, CPI or other indexes in providing this analysis, nor will it analyze. Thus, it attempts to redefine the notion of a crisis, even within an economic perspective.

The existing trend of left-liberal democracies and people over the world is towards the advocacy ... more The existing trend of left-liberal democracies and people over the world is towards the advocacy of peace, diplomacy, and friendly international relations. The Indian example of the prioritization of non-violence in national liberation movements, while crucial to the world, is shadowed by the many largely violent acts committed in the Indian independence movement that positively contributed to it. Violence has been dealt with by many, however, in the heat of theorizing, sociology and political science have ignored the crucial focus on the psychology of the native, the communal practices, and the common sensibilities of a person. Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, caricatures the nature of colonization and decolonization with firm grip on the obvious as well as the nuanced. In this paper, I present an understanding of the first and major section of Fanon’s book, Concerning Violence, through the perspectives of two thinkers – Amilcar Cabral’s views in his speech The Weapon of Theory and Hannah Arendt’s text On Violence as well as some of her views from other works. Through this, I attempt to map the various interpretations of violence, in conversation with Fanon, to provide a critique of his work. The paper covers questions of violence and power, imperialism, Empire and colonialism, and of the nature of national liberation movements and the role of violence in it, both in a domestic and international context.

Robert Neville Cummings in his foreword to Rodney Taylors The Religious Dimensions of Confucianis... more Robert Neville Cummings in his foreword to Rodney Taylors The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism stated that a religious tradition need have three things – a) a mythic element with structures of the world and their meanings to society, b) rituals that are sets of repeatable and symbolizable actions that are normative to society, and c) a path of spiritual perfection or salvation. Myth and ritual are thus shown to have a sort of symbiotic relationship. A true understanding of religion is impossible without a complimentary and comparative analysis of the three factors of time, myth and ritual. Various theories and frameworks have been drawn up to understand the correlation between the three. This essay will discuss such a framework that correlates myth, time and ritual in religions. It will begin with an explanation of the significance of the three elements separately, and then in relation to one another. Further, it will progress to analyze the frameworks that correlate the three, and will substantiate the same with examples drawn from scholars of religion as well as the elements of certain religions themselves (Taylor, 1990).

Nature, the environment, its organisms, and their interactions with man, have been limited to the... more Nature, the environment, its organisms, and their interactions with man, have been limited to the study of biology, ecology, and similar life sciences. However, the extension of the study of ecology into literature has been limited. The representation of nature has been studied only in the purview of symbolism and allegory, when, in fact, nature's influence on classical literature has been profound, and has influenced the writings of man from time immemorial. This paper will attempt to craft a map of the King James Bible's Genesis, to analyze the representations of natural environment in it, through close textual analysis. This will not be an analysis of mere cosmology, but rather the role and representation of nature in the same. The historical contrast of the representation of the world in Christianity will be analyzed. This will be followed by an analysis of the " genesis " of nature and its role in the creation-myth. This concept ties together with the concept of a human dominion or ownership of nature, the responsibilities of 'earthkeeping' associated with it (Kay). Finally that many ideas of environmentalism derive their core values and tenets from Christianity will be presented. This will be in contrast to the popular conception that Christianity is the ideological root of the current environmental crisis. The living being apart from man must be preserved, maintained and enabled to maintain proper connections with members of their own kind and with many other creatures with whom they interact—the soil, and with the air and water upon which they depend for life and fruitfulness. The need for nature to be maintained, in ways complementary to our scientific understanding of the world, within the trophic cycles of life and death—within the energy and material transfers upon which the life of the biosphere depends. Greco-Roman mythology that preceded the Bible was different from many of the mythologies of the world in the element that it denied the concept of the beginning of the world, and represented cosmology with a concept of time that was cyclical in nature (DeWitt, Biodiversity and the Bible). However, the Bible contrasted with such ideas, with a concept of time that was linear, not cyclical, and with a clear creation, a concept that was inherited from Judaism. The Book of Genesis, in clear steps, delineates the phases in which a benevolent God created the world.

-Srivatsan Manivannan ___________________________________________________________________________... more -Srivatsan Manivannan ______________________________________________________________________________ I arrived in Chennai on the 2 nd of December, from foggy Delhi. I was greeted by an outpour of rain. A conversation with the cabbie about demonetization brought up a little bit of a common man's perspective. He spoke of how the people can only do what they can, that they can speak and complain, but never is there strong consensus on anythinggood or bad. And without a strong consensus, there's nothing they can do, nothing they can attempt to change the way things are. I'm reminded of Carl Jung's words, on how political correctness is a means of psychic isolation, causing the people to be unable to rise up en masse. Two days later, today, the 4 th of December, I went to East India Comedy's All-Star tour happening in the city. They brought up a few things, demonetization, godmen, Modi, Trump, Bollywood, all among a few topics encroached upon.

For long I have remained mute about Jallikattu, the ban, and the protests occurring in Chennai an... more For long I have remained mute about Jallikattu, the ban, and the protests occurring in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu, India, and the world regarding the same, preferring to assimilate information rather than provide conclusive opinions that are misinformed.

Political correctness in the 21st century used to be considered as the sign of a new progressive ... more Political correctness in the 21st century used to be considered as the sign of a new progressive culture, identity, and politics. In the past few years, political correctness has been stated to alienate people, discriminate on caste, and exist as a tool of liberal coercion. Slavoj Zizek called it a form of “modern totalitarianism” (Jones, 2015) (CNS News, 2017). Liberalism, once seen as the pinnacle of human growth and development, is now popularly considered to have failed. To analyze why such is the case, from the perspective of western political theory, shows that the critique of liberal democracy isn’t new, but has existed for decades. This paper will attempt to delineate such a critique, by distinguishing between capitalist liberalism and mass democracy, by bringing a primary text of Paul Edward Gottfried titled After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State in conversation with ideas of Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter, both mentioned in his text as well as through other secondary literature analysis (Gottfried, 1999). I begin by summarizing the Gottfried’s text, progress to Karl Marx’s interpretation of capitalism and democracy, and then dive into the text itself to answer the aforementioned questions.

The informal and ritualized concepts of friendship in Homer's 'Iliad' are analyzed. Friendship’, ... more The informal and ritualized concepts of friendship in Homer's 'Iliad' are analyzed. Friendship’, from the Old English ‘frēondscipe’, is used as an all-encompassing umbrella term for any non-romantic conjugal relationship. There are concepts of Platonic love, in Plato’s Symposium, which considers it to be a ‘divine love’, one of muses and inspiration, that eventually leads to furthering of one’s divinity, or the contemplation of it (Resser, 2016). The same way that both concepts have been reduced to differing conceptions in the contemporary world, the depictions of non-romantic bonds were of a much higher subtlety and nuance in the Greek world and ethos. The Homeric Iliad’s concepts of friendship are not simply those limited by the conventional connotations of the limited English word ‘friendship’

In the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt, around 150 people rebelled against the Nazis no... more In the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt, around 150 people rebelled against the Nazis not through violence of attempts to escape but with music. Musical conductor Rafael Scachter brought all the people together using merely his memory and a single piano in a dark basement of the camp, and in singing Verdi’s Requieum, reached a level of excellence that even the Nazis themselves permitted the music (Bor, et al., 1963) (Manivannan, 2016). The Terezin Requiem is one of the most touching tails of resistance against the Nazis, for the fact that the concentration camps weren’t merely focused upon destroying the physical aspect of the person, but rather the cultural and historical aspect as well. As Peter Baehr puts it, while speaking of Hannah Arendt’s views, “…concentration camps sought to swallow people into “holes of oblivion” and eliminate traces of their ever having existed.” (Baehr, 2010)
It was in 1950 that Hannah Arendt finally became a citizen of the United States, and it was also that year that she began meeting and developing a romance with Martin Heidegger once again. Hannah Arendt having been a Jew and in Germany for a long period of her life, not merely wrote of her objective ideas but rather funneled her personal experiences into her writing. It was in the same year 1950 that she wrote her seminal work titled Social Science Techniques and the Study of Concentration Camps (Arendt, 1950). She stated critiques of the social sciences and removed key assumptions that the discipline held about the utilitarian, functionalist, and self-interest driven elements of human nature with respect to totalitarianism and concentration camps. This paper will provide an account of the arguments that she provided with regards to the limitations of social science techniques, with the context of the extermination of Jews in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. The paper will begin with certain key definitions and proceed to delineate the various arguments of Hannah Arendt.

The ethics of war require a dynamism and creativity, not limited to the deductive constraints of ... more The ethics of war require a dynamism and creativity, not limited to the deductive constraints of generalization and idealistic theory. While dealing with ideals, ethical considerations need to make allowance for chaos and unpredictability, much like the scientific margins-of-error attributed to all calculations. Risk as an ever-existing phenomenon needs to be appropriated and used to remold theories of Just War and international law. It is the manifestation of risk that has taken the terminology of ‘irregular wars’ and the world that once considered it to have fallen, now witness its rise. The new age of warfare is one increasingly fought with irregular forces, thus necessitating the modification of army doctrine, political analysis, and the conception and application of ethics. These wars are not out-of-reach portrayals by historians of histories past, but televised and lived experiences of people in the present day. Thus, a consideration of the ethics of war requires the analysis of irregular warfare in the current context, not leaving out the cultural, religious, and psychological elements while considering the political and diplomatic spheres. In this paper I use the existing literature on irregular warfare and the ethics of war to outline the chief arguments made with respect to definition and application of ethics and doctrine for irregular wars. The ambiguity of the definition of the term is first seen, followed by the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello and the challenges these principles face when dealing with irregular warfare are listed. I then speak of the evolution of the Just War Theory from dealing merely with regular warfare to dealing with irregular warfare.

While considering the decolonization processes of Asia and the Caribbean, the organic evolution o... more While considering the decolonization processes of Asia and the Caribbean, the organic evolution of both the processes of decolonization as well as its outcomes and after-effects, is seen. What is implied by this, is not merely a matter of linear causality of politics from the colonizer to the colonized, but rather a more complex figuration of influences – cultural, economic, political, and social. Thus, this paper will consider certain aspects of the approaches and outcomes of Asia and the Caribbean, and look to analyze this in a critical manner, with relation to each other.

Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, a novella integrating the African Igbo culture, lifestyles, ... more Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, a novella integrating the African Igbo culture, lifestyles, and symbols in a developing world’s narrative, invokes this very question. It has been termed a classic, and has been credited with establishing new and dynamic means of recording cultures. In ‘Things Fall Apart’, it is neither simple ethnography or fiction, but an intentional combination of the two, the reasons for which will analyzed in this paper. The primary concept, however, that I wish to establish in this analysis, is an understanding of the Igbo symbolism in the text, and its critical analysis in relation to other similar symbolisms. Various references in the novel will be critiqued. Ultimately, this paper seeks to establish ‘Things Fall Apart’, as a work that resets the teleology of literature, and opens a new dimension to explore in, all at once.