{"id":{"repo_id":"uic","oai_identifier":"oai:figshare.com:article/32995202"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uic/oai:figshare.com:article/32995202","repository":{"repo_id":"uic","name":"University of Illinois - Chicago","base_url":"https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai"},"display":{"title":"Seeing the State with Transgender People: Gender, Caste, and Neoliberal Development in Kerala, India","abstract":"This dissertation examines the entanglements of transgender identity and state power in contemporary Kerala, a southwestern state of India. It asks what trans-queer people can tell us about the changing shape of postcolonial developmentalist governance and the welfare state in the late-capitalist era. In the past decade, Indian LGBTQIA+ politics has seen a distinct, if ambivalent, shift towards reckoning with neoliberal governance, leaving the national LGBTQ+ movement in a state of stagnation or active co-optation by establishment politics. Through the case of Kerala, I argue that turning to India’s distinct subnational regions can reveal alternative genealogies of queer, anti-caste, and feminist politics in India that have been elided by nation-centric framings. In 2015, Kerala became the first Indian state to release a policy recognizing transgender people, reifying its transnational image as a “model” of people-centric Third World development. Since then, transgender Keralites have been fashioned as mascots of development within Kerala’s subnationalist political field by a range of players—political parties, social movements, and state- and state-allied agencies. Through 24 months of ethnographic field work across 2018-22, this dissertation follows trans-queer Keralites as they navigate the heightened contradictions of a particular historical moment: as newly recognized gendered subjects within a Left-led subnational state apparatus, in a country with a Hindu Right-wing party at the helm, within a late neoliberal juncture where welfare is being shaped as a site for expanded governance and the purchase of political legitimacy rather than redistribution. The dissertation presents the framing of “anti-caste materialist feminism” to think along with queer-trans Keralites at this juncture. Rather than relying on presumed solidarity based on identity, such a materialist vision is built by people whose lives are variously curtailed by capitalism/power collectively theorizing about their lives. While the state and civil society tend to insulate transgender subjects through recognition, the dissertation shows that trans-queer people’s politics and lives are built fundamentally on historical-material relationships—between transgender people, same-sex loving people, sex workers, impoverished cis women, oppressor-caste cis women, and Dalit-Bahujan (oppressed-caste and religious) communities.","abstract_html":"This dissertation examines the entanglements of transgender identity and state power in contemporary Kerala, a southwestern state of India. It asks what trans-queer people can tell us about the changing shape of postcolonial developmentalist governance and the welfare state in the late-capitalist era. In the past decade, Indian LGBTQIA+ politics has seen a distinct, if ambivalent, shift towards reckoning with neoliberal governance, leaving the national LGBTQ+ movement in a state of stagnation or active co-optation by establishment politics. Through the case of Kerala, I argue that turning to India’s distinct subnational regions can reveal alternative genealogies of queer, anti-caste, and feminist politics in India that have been elided by nation-centric framings. In 2015, Kerala became the first Indian state to release a policy recognizing transgender people, reifying its transnational image as a “model” of people-centric Third World development. Since then, transgender Keralites have been fashioned as mascots of development within Kerala’s subnationalist political field by a range of players—political parties, social movements, and state- and state-allied agencies. Through 24 months of ethnographic field work across 2018-22, this dissertation follows trans-queer Keralites as they navigate the heightened contradictions of a particular historical moment: as newly recognized gendered subjects within a Left-led subnational state apparatus, in a country with a Hindu Right-wing party at the helm, within a late neoliberal juncture where welfare is being shaped as a site for expanded governance and the purchase of political legitimacy rather than redistribution. The dissertation presents the framing of “anti-caste materialist feminism” to think along with queer-trans Keralites at this juncture. Rather than relying on presumed solidarity based on identity, such a materialist vision is built by people whose lives are variously curtailed by capitalism/power collectively theorizing about their lives. While the state and civil society tend to insulate transgender subjects through recognition, the dissertation shows that trans-queer people’s politics and lives are built fundamentally on historical-material relationships—between transgender people, same-sex loving people, sex workers, impoverished cis women, oppressor-caste cis women, and Dalit-Bahujan (oppressed-caste and religious) communities.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Shilpa Menon (24400145)"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2026,"date_issued":"2026-05-01T00:00:00Z","date_published":"2026-05-01T00:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T21:33:51Z","subjects":["anthropology of the state","gender and sexuality studies","India studies"],"languages":[],"rights":["In Copyright","Open Access after 2028-05-01"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.25417/uic.32995202.v1","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Shilpa Menon (24400145)"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2026-05-01T00:00:00Z"]},{"key":"dc:relation","label":"Dc Relation","values":["https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Seeing_the_State_with_Transgender_People_Gender_Caste_and_Neoliberal_Development_in_Kerala_India/32995202"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["anthropology of the state","gender and sexuality studies","India studies"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["In Copyright","Open Access after 2028-05-01"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["10.25417/uic.32995202.v1"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation examines the entanglements of transgender identity and state power in contemporary Kerala, a southwestern state of India. It asks what trans-queer people can tell us about the changing shape of postcolonial developmentalist governance and the welfare state in the late-capitalist era. In the past decade, Indian LGBTQIA+ politics has seen a distinct, if ambivalent, shift towards reckoning with neoliberal governance, leaving the national LGBTQ+ movement in a state of stagnation or active co-optation by establishment politics. Through the case of Kerala, I argue that turning to India’s distinct subnational regions can reveal alternative genealogies of queer, anti-caste, and feminist politics in India that have been elided by nation-centric framings. In 2015, Kerala became the first Indian state to release a policy recognizing transgender people, reifying its transnational image as a “model” of people-centric Third World development. Since then, transgender Keralites have been fashioned as mascots of development within Kerala’s subnationalist political field by a range of players—political parties, social movements, and state- and state-allied agencies. Through 24 months of ethnographic field work across 2018-22, this dissertation follows trans-queer Keralites as they navigate the heightened contradictions of a particular historical moment: as newly recognized gendered subjects within a Left-led subnational state apparatus, in a country with a Hindu Right-wing party at the helm, within a late neoliberal juncture where welfare is being shaped as a site for expanded governance and the purchase of political legitimacy rather than redistribution. The dissertation presents the framing of “anti-caste materialist feminism” to think along with queer-trans Keralites at this juncture. Rather than relying on presumed solidarity based on identity, such a materialist vision is built by people whose lives are variously curtailed by capitalism/power collectively theorizing about their lives. While the state and civil society tend to insulate transgender subjects through recognition, the dissertation shows that trans-queer people’s politics and lives are built fundamentally on historical-material relationships—between transgender people, same-sex loving people, sex workers, impoverished cis women, oppressor-caste cis women, and Dalit-Bahujan (oppressed-caste and religious) communities."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Seeing the State with Transgender People: Gender, Caste, and Neoliberal Development in Kerala, India"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Shilpa Menon (24400145)"],"dc:date":["2026-05-01T00:00:00Z"],"dc:description":["This dissertation examines the entanglements of transgender identity and state power in contemporary Kerala, a southwestern state of India. It asks what trans-queer people can tell us about the changing shape of postcolonial developmentalist governance and the welfare state in the late-capitalist era. In the past decade, Indian LGBTQIA+ politics has seen a distinct, if ambivalent, shift towards reckoning with neoliberal governance, leaving the national LGBTQ+ movement in a state of stagnation or active co-optation by establishment politics. Through the case of Kerala, I argue that turning to India’s distinct subnational regions can reveal alternative genealogies of queer, anti-caste, and feminist politics in India that have been elided by nation-centric framings. In 2015, Kerala became the first Indian state to release a policy recognizing transgender people, reifying its transnational image as a “model” of people-centric Third World development. Since then, transgender Keralites have been fashioned as mascots of development within Kerala’s subnationalist political field by a range of players—political parties, social movements, and state- and state-allied agencies. Through 24 months of ethnographic field work across 2018-22, this dissertation follows trans-queer Keralites as they navigate the heightened contradictions of a particular historical moment: as newly recognized gendered subjects within a Left-led subnational state apparatus, in a country with a Hindu Right-wing party at the helm, within a late neoliberal juncture where welfare is being shaped as a site for expanded governance and the purchase of political legitimacy rather than redistribution. The dissertation presents the framing of “anti-caste materialist feminism” to think along with queer-trans Keralites at this juncture. Rather than relying on presumed solidarity based on identity, such a materialist vision is built by people whose lives are variously curtailed by capitalism/power collectively theorizing about their lives. While the state and civil society tend to insulate transgender subjects through recognition, the dissertation shows that trans-queer people’s politics and lives are built fundamentally on historical-material relationships—between transgender people, same-sex loving people, sex workers, impoverished cis women, oppressor-caste cis women, and Dalit-Bahujan (oppressed-caste and religious) communities."],"dc:identifier":["10.25417/uic.32995202.v1"],"dc:relation":["https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Seeing_the_State_with_Transgender_People_Gender_Caste_and_Neoliberal_Development_in_Kerala_India/32995202"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright","Open Access after 2028-05-01"],"dc:subject":["anthropology of the state","gender and sexuality studies","India studies"],"dc:title":["Seeing the State with Transgender People: Gender, Caste, and Neoliberal Development in Kerala, India"],"dc:type":["Text","Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T21:33:51Z"}