Customer Reviews

Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A classic, absolutely fascinating study of the transvestite eunuch hijras of India. Combining objectivity with sympathy and respect, the writer allows us to glimpse the feelings and aspirations of these people, whose lives encompass joy, sadness, degradation, liberation, hope. The reader comes to know the hijras as real people while gaining an understanding of a very ancient and significant way of life. Nanda's lucid writing and subtle insights are augmented by a marvelous collection of color photographs and vivid case histories, including numerous first person accounts. This book is a model for ethnographic study and will leave an indelible impression on the heart and mind of anyone who reads it.

While reading Nanda's Neither Man Nor Woman, I was struck by the sheer competancy and volume of her research. She truly gives a vivid, accurate picture of hijra life, ritual, and social attitude. The hijras are a group of traveling performers/prostitiutes who participate in ritualized castration. They are often homosexual, transsexual, or impotent men who are endowed by society with religious authority. They worship the Hindu Goddess Bahuchara Mata and participate in theatrical blessings of male children and newly weds. Nanda documents their rituals and beliefs while also defining their function within mainstream Indian society. My only point of criticism with Nanda'e work is her slight failure to fully demystify some of the ambiguities surrounding the hijras. One is never really certain of the actual definition and occupation of the hijras. However, after doing research on the hijras, Nanda's book is truly the most accurate and unbiased research available on hijra life. I would recommend it strongly.

I found this book very interesting and informative. I had read accounts of this type of goddess worship in ancient records (greek and roman)when I was a teenager but there was little cultural context and no rationale concerning the practices of emasculation. This book answered a lot of questions, why the operation, what the benefit to the devotee, who were these worshippers. I enjoyed finelly getting the answers to decades long questions.

I found this book to be an intriguing and comprehensive analysis of the lives of the Hijras of India. Nanda through personal interviews and anthropological analysis paints a picture of their lives as both marginal and yet highly spiritual. She describes how in India the hijras play an important role in both the blessings of marriages and childbirth's. It also describes the process of decision making that they go through to become a true spiritual hijra by becoming eunuchs. It is an important study to read because it challenges ideas of sexuality and spirituality. By becoming a eunuch, the Hijras truly become neither man nor woman. With their spiritual connection, they also are able to feel a sense of pride in who they are. Although this does not mean that they are exempt from harassment, it gives them a spiritual capital with which to protect themselves. It is an important book to read as well because it challenges ideas of sexuality and especially homosexuality in the US and other cultures as well.

What strikes me most about Nanda's work is how engaging it is. Although I originally encountered this book as an assigned reading for a seminar, I found myself eager to finish it for no other reason than the fact that I wanted to know what would happen next.

The reason for this, and what I feel to be Nanda's true strength in this work, is the in-depth focus on individuals. Instead of merely giving the reader a dry, distant overview of the hijra culture, Nanda examines in great detail the lives of a number of diverse individuals belonging to the hijra group. She allows the reader to feel for them, relate to them, and in this way, we wind up, almost accidentally, learning about the hijra culture.

Nanda does not, however, restrict herself to interview, and does her research thoroughly. She explains both the past, present and potential future of the hijra culture--in short a group of people in Indian society, almost outside the caste system in their uniqueness, who identify as neither male nor female (but who often begin life biologically male.) Interesting also is Nanda's tendency to insert tidbits of the creation myths of the hijra throughout the work--little snippets of mythology that are both interesting and informative, as they show the way in which the hijra have historically fit into their society.

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to students, educators, and even casual readers. Nanda manages to both be informative and engrossing, making "Neither Man Nor Woman" a highly enjoyable read.

Nanda succeeds in pioneering a new understanding of the previously misunderstood and misrepresented hijra community. Nanda's careful collection of information increases the value of her work to the field of anthropology. She succeeds in transmitting the voices of people living on one side of the world in a way that can be understood without losing the emic perspective. In addition, she raises new questions and presents a unique perspective deserving of further anthropological study. Her representation and care for her subjects is admirable. The dignity of the persons under study should always be preserved in by those wishing to shed light on the universal human condition. Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India is a valuable ethnography and a worthwhile read.

Fascinating book about the Hijras, a group of men in India that dress, act, and do whatever they can (surgeries, hormones) to be considered women. This book is not good for the close minded or immature as there are pages of entire lives of specific hijras, their struggles, and intimate secrets. It also demonstrates that tying the origins of hijras to myths and even Religion grants them a status of a Third gender and in some parts of India an incredible amount of respect. Shows the rigidness of the dichotmous western world and how this rigidness results in anger and hatred of the things that do not fit in the both categories.

This was a very interesting book on a very interesting group of people. Nanda did a superb job of describing the Hijras in the context of Indian society. The personal accounts of individual Hijras added a great perspective. My one problem with this book is that throughout, while striving to show the validity of the concept of more than two genders, Nanda gave the impression that she feels that the Western cultural concept of gender dichotomy is backward and naive. To me, this felt like an attack on Western culture, which I do not look for in supposedly unbiased ethnographies.