A talk about an undergraduate dissertation “A Visual History of the Evolution and Marginalisation of Hijras and the Third Gender in India”. Dated 24th Feb 2022.
“My undergraduate dissertation looked at a visual history of the Hijra community and gender non-conformity in the Indian subcontinent. It traced gender non-conformity back 2800 years ago in the Rigveda. I looked at how the community changed from pre-colonial to “British India”. I used cultural and artistic representations of gender non-conformity to track this change. My dissertation received 83% (first class honours). As part of my research for my dissertation I reached out to Kamran for some guidance. Kamran is an important scholar in the area of South Asian intersex people.” Shahrazad Hand, Cardiff University