Abstract

Recent scholarship on alternative dispute resolution forums has shown how the gendered ideology of the state is reproduced in these forums. These forums are said to consolidate the public-private divide and constitute the heterosexual, monogamous family as an affective, nurturing unit that society needs to valorise. Based upon an ethnographic exploration of female litigants in two kinds of alternative dispute resolution forums – a women’s grievance redressal cell run by citizens’ groups and a women’s sharia court run by female Muslim activists in Mumbai – this article traces how women reconstitute gendered roles within the family and challenge the state’s gendered ideology as they navigate the porous boundaries of state and non-state law. It also brings to the fore the similar ways in which women negotiate marital disputes while negotiating state and non-state law in different kinds of alternative dispute resolution forums. Women focus on questions of economic security, property rights, and demonstrate a range of affects such as betrayal, disappointment, anger, and hurt as they navigate polygamous arrangements and creatively manoeuvre spaces of alternative dispute resolution. These gendered negotiations challenge a paradigm of reified gendered kinship roles based on a gendered division of labour in the heterosexual family.

摘要

最近关于替代性争议解决论坛的学术研究表明，国家的性别意识形态是如何在这些论坛中再现的。据说这些论坛巩固了公私分歧，并将异性恋、一夫一妻制的家庭构建为社会需要重视的情感、培育单位。基于对两种替代性争议解决论坛中女性诉讼当事人的人种学探索——由公民团体运营的妇女申诉补救小组和妇女伊斯兰教法孟买女性穆斯林活动人士管理的法庭——本文追溯了女性在家庭和非国家法律的漏洞百出的界限中如何重新构建家庭中的性别角色，并挑战国家的性别意识形态。它还凸显了妇女在不同类型的替代性纠纷解决论坛中谈判州法和非州法时谈判婚姻纠纷的类似方式。女性关注经济安全、财产权问题，并在应对一夫多妻安排和创造性地操纵替代性争端解决空间时表现出一系列影响，例如背叛、失望、愤怒和伤害。这些性别谈判挑战了基于异性家庭性别分工的具体化性别亲属角色范式。