Badhai: Hijra-Khwaja Sira-Trans Performance across Borders in South Asia

Hardback

Main Details

Title Badhai: Hijra-Khwaja Sira-Trans Performance across Borders in South Asia
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Adnan Hossain
By (author) Claire Pamment
By (author) Jeff Roy
Series edited by Mr Simon Shepherd
SeriesForms of Drama
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:176
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreDrama
ISBN/Barcode 9781350174535
ClassificationsDewey:792.0954
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations 10 bw illus

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint Methuen Drama
Publication Date 1 December 2022
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

This is the first full-length book to provide an introduction to badhai performances throughout South Asia, examining their characteristics and relationships to differing contexts in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Badhai's repertoires of songs, dances, prayers, and comic repartee are performed by socially marginalised hijra, khwaja sira, and trans communities. They commemorate weddings, births and other celebratory heteronormative events. The form is improvisational and responds to particular contexts, but also moves across borders, including those of nation, religion, genre, and identity. This collaboratively authored book draws from anthropology, theatre and performance studies, music and sound studies, ethnomusicology, queer and transgender studies, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork to examine badhai's place-based dynamics, transcultural features, and communications across the hijrascape. This vital study explores the form's changing status and analyses these performances' layered, scalar, and sensorial practices, to extend ways of understanding hijra-khwaja sira-trans performance.

Author Biography

Adnan Hossain is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Theory at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Claire Pamment is Associate Professor of World Theatre and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, William & Mary, USA. Jeff Roy is Assistant Professor in the Department of Liberal Studies, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA.