Disciplining the Sex Ratio:Exploring the Governmentality of Female Feticide in India

Purewal, Navtej

Abstract

The ‘girl child’ has attracted a considerable amount of attention in India as an
object of policy addressing gender discrimination. This article examines the field of campaigns seeking to address female foeticide and positions the public discourse on the ‘girl child’ and sex selective abortion in India within a broad cultural backdrop of son preference. The article argues that anti-female foeticide campaigns exist within a disciplinary domain of female foeticide which both generates a discourse of saving the ‘girl child’ and also shows attempts to utilise both incentives and punitive measures in carving out a female foeticide carceral space.

Citation

Purewal, N. (2014). Disciplining the Sex Ratio:Exploring the Governmentality of Female Feticide in India. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 21(5), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2013.878248

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 27, 2014
• Deposit Date: Sep 26, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 9, 2016
• Journal: Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power
• Print ISSN: 1070-289X
• Electronic ISSN: 1547-3384
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 1-15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2013.878248