The Masculinist Spaces of the Judiciary

Ala kicks off its new translation series, ‘Speaking Otherwise’, with a 2013 piece from the feminist magazine, Sanghaditha. Here, two women legal professionals draw on their experiences defending domestic violence survivors in Kerala’s lower courts to provide a grounded perspective of a foundational question that feminists raise: is the law a tool of change, or a tool for enforcing the status quo?

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Art as an Archive of Memory: Devotion, History, and Resistance in the Irupathettaam Onam of Ochira

Ahnas offers a visual and experiential entry into the spectacular festival of Irupathettaam Onam of Ochira. At a moment when dislocated histories and reinterpreted myths are increasingly mobilized for divisive political ends, the article finds value in staying with the ‘feeling’ of belongingness and participation that a festival can generate and an art can nurture.

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