Spotted Goddesses

Book excerpt: Roja Singh's critical ethnography on caste and gender is rooted in interactions, and lived experiences in communities of Dalit women in Tamil Nadu, India. Situated in transnational feminist discourses, Singh's perspective as a Dalit woman, provides an intersectional social analysis of power structures that sustain caste dominance in South India today. She describes strategies of social change in Dalit women's activism as rooted in subversive applications of imposed identities of "difference" thwarting social boundaries and punishment traditions. The core of this Interdisciplinary work is Dalit women's songs, oral and written testimonial narratives, including Singh's personal story.