An Ethnographic Study of Sex Selection in Western India
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 "A Necessary Sin": An Ethnographic Study Of Sex Selection In Western India Utpal Niranjan Sandesara University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Sandesara, Utpal Niranjan, ""A Necessary Sin": An Ethnographic Study Of Sex Selection In Western India" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2565. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2565 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2565 For more information, please contact [email protected]. "A Necessary Sin": An Ethnographic Study Of Sex Selection In Western India Abstract This dissertation analyzes sex-selective abortion in western India as a lived process with profound cultural, ethical, and demographic implications. Over the past three decades, selective elimination of female fetuses has emerged as a disturbing form of family planning across parts of Europe and Asia. In India, the practice remains widespread despite extensive efforts to combat it, with drastically skewed girl- to-boy ratios resulting in many locales. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with families and clinicians practicing sex selection, as well as with government officials and activists attempting to regulate it, this dissertation examines how prenatal sex determination marks fetuses with gender and incorporates them into local systems of kinship, biomedicine, and governance. Elucidating a kinship logic that renders daughters threatening and sons indispensable, I follow prospective parents and clinicians as they imagine divergent futures for children-to-be, navigate a clandestine black market, and employ specific biomedical techniques ot produce and act on gendered fetuses. In the process of sex selection, fetuses become subject to complex ethical deliberations, familial struggles over reproductive decision-making, herbal and religious modalities of son production, and a host of public interventions aimed at saving daughters-to-be. I argue that the diverse actions around prenatal sex determination presuppose, shape, and intervene on a “gendered fetal subject”—an imagined or potential person whose liminal status (between human and non-human, between alive and un-alive) makes it a point of connection among households, clinics, and governance institutions. Tracing the production, transformation, and elimination of gendered fetal subjects reveals how kinship extends prenatally, as well as how fetuses become incorporated into social life. Furthermore, as suggested by prospective parents’ fraught reflections on the notion of a necessar“ y sin” (profoundly unethical but nonetheless unavoidable), understanding gendered fetal subjects provides an entry point for untangling the moral complexities of sex selection as a liminal form of violence—a gendered violation at the very threshold of human social existence. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Anthropology First Advisor Adriana Petryna Second Advisor Philippe Bourgois Keywords Biomedicine, Gender, Governance, India, Kinship, Reproduction Subject Categories Asian Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology | South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2565 “A NECESSARY SIN”: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF SEX SELECTION IN WESTERN INDIA Utpal Niranjan Sandesara A DISSERTATION in Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation Co-Supervisor of Dissertation ____ ________________ _______________________ Adriana Petryna, Ph.D. Philippe Bourgois, Ph.D. Edmund J. & Louise W. Kahn Professor of Anthropology Term Professor in Anthropology (UCLA) Graduate Group Chairperson ________________________ Deborah Thomas, Ph.D., R. Jean Brownlee Term Professor of Anthropology Dissertation Committee Frances Barg, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health Deborah Thomas, Ph.D., R. Jean Brownlee Term Professor of Anthropology Leela Visaria, Ph.D., Honorary Professor (Gujarat Institute of Development Research) “A NECESSARY SIN”: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF SEX SELECTION IN WESTERN INDIA COPYRIGHT 2017 Utpal Niranjan Sandesara iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT Hundreds helped make this dissertation possible. The people and institutions named below generously offered their time, expertise, funds, and other resources to assist in my completion of the project; any shortcomings in the written product reflect only my inability to do full justice to their contributions. My dissertation committee helped shepherd this project from its inception as a difficult idea to its realization in this form. Adriana Petryna and Philippe Bourgois both offered invaluable guidance as advisers. Adriana’s good humor, consistent enthusiasm, and unflagging encouragement sustained me even when the work proved difficult, and her intellectual influence has left an indelible mark on my approach to ethnography, theory, and the broader anthropological literature. Likewise, Philippe believed in this project from its very first stages, and our meandering conversations and his unwavering kindness provided critical sparks for many of its most important stages. Deb Thomas’s tutelage in feminist and political anthropology has profoundly shaped my thinking around issues of gender, power, and the state, and her faith in the project has repeatedly buoyed me. Fran Barg’s medical anthropological expertise, grantwriting instruction, and firm support propelled me forward at every stage of the process. With her administrative support, infinite wisdom, and admirable willingness to engage in long conversations with a neophyte, Leela Visaria proved a better local mentor than I possibly could have hoped for. Before I departed for the field, conversations with multiple fellow travelers and senior scholars alike helped sharpen my empirical questions and theoretical orientations; Vincanne Adams, Anil Deolalikar, Didier Fassin, Sharon Kaufman, Margaret Lock, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Valerio Bacak, Abhijit Visaria, Tina Wu, Diana Burnett, Katherine Culver, Maria Fernanda Esteban Palma, Negar Razavi, Shashank Saini, Amrapali Maitra, Sonya Davey, and Samir Davalaraja all assisted me in this fashion. Laurie Hart’s encyclopedic knowledge of kinship studies provided an incomparably rich introduction to the subfield, and her thoughtful questions identified what would subsequently become several important lines of investigation. At the Penn Center for the Advanced Study of India, Devesh Kapur, Mekhala Krishnamurthy, and T. Sundararaman helped me think through the problems of sex selection in a specifically Indian context. Victor Alcalde, Marcelo Cerullo, Maxwell Rogoski, and Hirsh Sandesara variously drew my attention to interesting materials, while Ian Bennett, Bob Debbs, Wanda Ronner, Cori Schreiber provided valuable biomedical perspectives on my ethnographic concerns. Anita Chary, Beth Hallowell, Derek Newberry, and Puneet Sahota each played a pivotal role in helping me refine my project proposal and secure funding. Babu Suthar served as a masterful mentor in the nuances of Gujarati vocabulary, the cultural study of Gujarati gender and kinship, and the approach to Gujarati life more generally. Finally, Skip Brass and Maggie Krall’s unhesitating support made a smooth experience of what might prove a highly unconventional MD-PhD undertaking elsewhere. Generous financial support from a Wenner-Gren Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Grant, the Penn Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, a Penn Center for the iv Advanced Study of India Summer Research Fellowship, Penn Anthropology Department summer field funds, and a Penn Medical Scientist Training Program stipend made possible different stages of the fieldwork. In Gujarat, the first and most enduring support came from family, who helped me (and Trudy, once she came) make a home in the homeland. In particular, we received tremendous support from Kapil and Meera Patel; Ankit, Shivani, Pragna, and Manesh Dani; Pallavi and Shailesh Amin; Dipti Bhatt and family; and Kamakshi Shukla. For reasons of confidentiality, I am not at liberty to name most of those who played critical roles in facilitating my Mahesana fieldwork. First and foremost, I am grateful for the families that allowed me to enter their homes and their domestic affairs, sharing in a way that I could never quite reciprocate. Among clinicians, I owe a deep debt to the people I call Uma-masi, Dr. Dilip, and Dr. Ranjit, as well as to the staff members of Nandini and Chetna Clinics. Several other doctors and connectors supported my research in key ways. Numerous government officials and activists generously offered their time and expertise—in particular, one Health bureaucrat and one public relations officer whom I regret to not be able to thank by name. My landlords and neighbors generously welcomed us into their midst, even when they did not know what to make of us. Our three adopted families in Mahesana—they know who they are—sustained us through even the most challenging times with unfailing love. While write-up of my South Gujarat fieldwork will ultimately