Contradictory Lives Baul Women in India and Bangladesh 1st Edition by Lisa I Knight ISBN 978-0199396849 0199396841

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Product details: 

ISBN 10:  0199396841

ISBN 13: 978-0199396849

Author:  Lisa I Knight 

In literature and popular imagination, the Bauls of India and Bangladesh are characterized as musical mystics: orange-clad nomads of both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. They wander the countryside and entertain with their passionate singing and unusual behavior, and they are especially well-known for their evocative songs, which challenge the caste system and sectarianism prevalent in South Asia.

Although Bauls claim to value women over men, little is known about the individual views and experiences of Baul women. Based on ethnographic research in both the predominantly Hindu context of West Bengal (India) and the Muslim country of Bangladesh, this book explores the everyday lives of Baul women. Lisa Knight examines the contradictory expectations regarding Baul women: on the one hand, the ideal of a group unencumbered by societal restraints and concerns and, on the other, the real constraints of feminine respectability that seemingly curtail women’s mobility and public performances.

Knight demonstrates that Baul women respond to these conflicting expectations in various ways, sometimes adopting and other times subverting local gendered norms to craft meaningful lives. More so than their male counterparts, Baul women feel encumbered by norms. But rather than seeing Baul women’s normative behavior as indicative of their conformity to gendered roles (and, therefore, failures as Bauls), Knight argues that these women creatively draw on societal expectations to transcend their social limits and create new paths.

Table of contents: 

PART 1: Multiple Sites

1. Finding Baul Women

2. “Real Bauls Live under Trees:” Imaginings and the Marginalization of Baul Women

3. “I’ve Done Nothing Wrong:” Feminine Respectability and Baul Expectations

PART 2: Negotiations

4. Negotiating between Paradigms of the Good Baul and the Good Woman

5. “Do Not Neglect This Golden Body of Yours:” Personal and Social Transformation through Baul Songs

6. Renouncing Expectations

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Tags: Lisa I Knight, Contradictory Lives, Baul Women, India and Bangladesh