News

The problem of Jammu and Kashmir and of the Kashmir valley in particular, must be the most explored and the most overworked theme in a variety of studies that range from conflict, to nationality and nation, to federalism, to patriotism, to security, to terrorism, to accounts of the Partition, to communal conflict, and to India-Pakistan relations. Looming large over all these scholarly imaginations is the ‘P’ factor—Pakistan, the ‘T’ factor—terrorism, the ‘S’ factor—security, and in the aftermath of 9/11 the ‘I’ factor—Islamic terrorism.

This volume is an edited collection of the papers presented as part of an advanced seminar at the School of American Research, Santa Fe. Margins are normally discussed in terms of a centre but here the perspective is somewhat reversed: margins are not just where the rationalized administrative forms of the state are less effectively represented, but rather practices and policies outside the mainstream that somehow also play a role in constituting the state as a necessary entailment.

The issue of political obligation has been a central concern of modern political theory. Why should people obey the state? Why should individuals subject themselves to the authority of the sovereign? Early liberal theorists referred to such benefits as, peace, security, freedom, and protection of one’s basic rights, as reasons for abiding by the law promulgated by the sovereign. As the movements for democracy and greater participation gained ground, the nature of sovereign authority and the accountability of the sovereign became the primary concerns.

The idea of this book came to the scholars at the Institute of Women’s Studies (IWS) at the University of Ottawa in the fall of 2000 when the World March for Women was energizing the women’s movement and feminist studies globally. A general call was put out for research papers, without setting any boundaries to the authors as to what and how they should write. The response was enormous.

The experience of the women’s movement throughout the world has led to an increasingly critical engagement with legal discourse. In many systems the substance, structure and culture of the law are actively discriminatory to women denying them equal rights. Even in areas where there is de jure equality, the de facto position of women is far from equal because of the way all the actors involved interpret laws.