From 1998 to 1999, I interviewed women who had been incarcerated under the Zina Ordinance (zina means illicit sex) in Pakistan. This led me to an examination of women's moral regulation by their families, a process in which I maintain the state is complicit. I argue against relativist explanations of this process, which view Pakistani culture or notions of timeless Islam as the reason for women's incarceration. Instead, I examine the interconnection of morality with the legal/judicial structures, the relationship between (...) the state and patriarchy within families, and the plight of impoverished women in Pakistan within an era of globalization. In my analysis, I link economic development and human rights to globalization and the continuing costs of militarization. Such connections allow feminists to target the structural conditions that sustain the laws in Pakistan and help create an environment that will bring about the repeal of the laws while contributing to trans-national feminist solidarity. (shrink)

As the dominant media institution in South Asia, Bombay cinema's cultural production of narratives, images and spectacle plays a crucial role in the effort to consolidate and project definitions of the nation. Moreover, such images are exported to the South Asian diaspora worldwide as part of the processes associated with the globalized cultural product referred to as Bollywood. This discussion examines the production and reception of the 2008 film Jodhaa Akbar both as process and product of complex historical, cultural and (...) political nation-building projects in which gender plays a central role. (shrink)