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Sexuality
is mediated by gender, race, class, caste and other identities and
axes of discrimination. However, the exciting and complex field of
sexuality has more often than not been conceptualised in narrow,
boring biomedical terms and translated along the lines of who does
what, with whom, when, how, and how many times
The Sexuality and Rights Institute was developed to, in some
measure, address this wholly inadequate approach and is based on
an understanding of field realities in India. It is an annual two
weeks long residential course that focuses on a conceptual study
of sexuality. It examines the links between sexuality, rights,
gender, health and their interface with socio-cultural and legal
issues. Participants critically analyse policy, research and
programme interventions using a rights based approach.
Recent theories of sexuality have used more complex and diverse
ways of examining sexuality. For example, Carole Vance examines
the tensions between sexual pleasure and sexual danger. According
to her, examining sexuality only in terms of sexual violence
negates women’s sexual agency and choice, while examining it
only from the perspective of pleasure and gratification ignores
the patriarchal structure within which women act. In another paper
published in 1999, she points out that the study of sexuality is
now increasingly being guided by the biomedical model – a result
of the AIDS epidemic and the renewed interest in sexuality that it
has generated.
Another theorist, Gayle Rubin, emphasises the importance of
studying and understanding sexuality in times of social strife. It
is in such times that ‘…disputes over sexual behaviour often
become the vehicles for displacing social anxieties…’ She
defines as ‘Sex Wars’, a series of sex panics and violent
reactions to sexual behaviour over the centuries in Europe and
America. She traces, in different historical times, people’s
changing reactions to different sexual behaviours and their
relationship with culture, the economy and religion. Rubin
describes how sex panics are created and how restrictive laws are
often passed as a result of this. These laws, such as the
Contagious Diseases Acts in England, a legislation created to
control syphilis, are often misinformed and result in ‘witch
hunts’ and the scapegoating of vulnerable groups. An example
from recent times is the scapegoating of the gay community with
regards to AIDS.
It is the socially marginalised groups that suffer further
marginalisation and the violation of their human rights. In this
context, Alice Miller examines the study of sexuality and the
concept of ‘sexual rights’ and discusses the need to define
the term in a manner that makes it possible for diverse persons to
claim their sexual rights. Miller cautions us that the term
‘sexual and reproductive rights’ can be exclusionary and that
it is crucial to explicitly name and protect persons who are not
traditionally addressed in reproductive health work.
According to Marge Berer, ‘sexuality is at the core of human
identity and personhood’. She states ‘what would make us fully
human is the ability to engage with the passion, pleasure, pain
and consequence of sexual desire for our relationship as conscious
beings, and with respect for the autonomy of our partners whose
needs and desires may be the same or different from our own’.
These and other ideas have opened up new avenues for ways in which
programmes and policies can be conceptualised and implemented.
A review of studies on sexuality and sexual behaviour in India
reveals that researchers working on issues of sexuality tend to be
limited by weak conceptual frameworks, a lack of training, and a
poor knowledge of ethics. Consequently, strategies developed are
based on unexamined models that might be discordant with stated
goals. This not only reduces the potential impact of work on these
issues, but sometimes also leads to the development and
implementation of programmes, advocacy initiatives and actions
that ultimately do not further well being and the assertion of
rights.
Globally as well, work on sexuality has tended to focus only on
issues of sexuality education, lesbian and gay (and more recently,
bisexual and transgender) issues, sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS
prevention, and sexual violence. Despite a long history of work on
women’s rights and community health in India, there has been a
paucity of conceptualising and understanding the interface between
sexuality and human rights and its connections with issues of
gender and health. Most organisations have worked on issues of
sexuality from a reproductive health, women’s health, population
stabilisation, HIV/AIDS prevention and a violence prevention
perspective, or a mix of these. At the time of developing the
Institute, there were no programmes available in India that helped
further a familiarity with and an understanding of the interface
between sexuality and rights. There are courses and institutes in
USA and Europe that encourage activists, scholars and researchers
to examine these issues. However, the costs involved in
participating in these courses are prohibitive and these courses
do not adequately examine issues of relevance to the South Asian
region, for instance, the resurgence of fundamentalism and the
impact of population policies.
The Sexuality and Rights Institute is organised by Creating
Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA) and Talking About
Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues (TARSHI), two not-for-profit
organisations based in New Delhi, India and has been held in March
2002 and in January 2003. So far, forty-seven participants
selected through an open application process have attended the two
Institutes. The faculty comprises national and international
resource persons.
Finding the right mix of pedagogical methods to ‘teach’
sexuality has been a crucial step in developing the Institute. In
most of the Indian school system, teachers deposit information
into the student’s heads, like a banking system. Students learn
to memorise instead of analyse. The opposite of this is Freire’s
Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire explains that ‘Banking
education resists dialogue…’. Freire argues that any
curriculum that ignores racism, sexism, the exploitation of
workers, and other forms of oppression supports the status quo.
The banking system of teaching inhibits the expansion of
consciousness and blocks creative and liberating social action for
change. On the other hand, critique is used as a method of
investigation in Critical Theory. The primary characteristic of
this school of thought is that social theory, whether reflected to
educational research, art, philosophy, literature, or business,
should play a significant role in changing the world, not just
recording information.
An integration of both Critical and Feminist approaches provides a
pedagogy that de-emphasises the teacher as the agent of
empowerment, and that considers the student's experiences and
perceptions as one basis of “legitimate” knowledge; other ways
of knowing beyond reason and rationalist thought; self-reflection
on the part of the student; self-reflection on the part of the
teacher that includes the acknowledgement of ideas and practices
that were unsuccessful; recognition of the manifestations of power
in the classroom; recognition of the gender bias present in the
discourse of critical pedagogy; recognition of the oppression
possible in the form of “giving voice”; recognition of the
necessity of experimenting with forms of communication other than
dialogue; and the need to consider contexts within the creation of
pedagogies.
Because sexuality is a complex field of study that spans multiple
disciplines and areas of work, the course content of the Sexuality
and Rights Institute draws from different social science
disciplines and the intersections between them. Modules include
sexuality and the rights framework; sexuality, gender and the
legal system; sexual and reproductive health and rights; sex-work,
sexuality and rights; agency and victimhood; representation of
sexuality; and sexual diversities and rights. The Institute uses
diverse pedagogical methods including learning assignments,
interactive sessions, films, performances, and lectures.
One of the most important objectives of the Institute is to
encourage participants to critically examine how policies and
practices in the field might affirm or violate rights. All
discussions were linked to practical issues and the challenges
that arise in addressing sexual and reproductive health concerns.
The Institute has an interdisciplinary focus and integrates theory
with praxis. The faculty finely tunes the course on a daily basis
as well as in terms of continuity and coverage of course content
through the week.
Each participant also has individual time with two faculty members
who are reputed practitioners in the fields of human rights and
sexual and reproductive health. Participants discuss with them
ways in which they conceptualise their work as well as strategies
that they could use to translate theory into practice and
incorporate their new learning into their work.
At the Sexuality and Rights Institute, the pedagogy employed uses
a mix of different methodologies – the traditional lecture
format, self reflection, group work, discussions, films as well as
individual conversations with faculty. The Institute seeks to
provide ways of conceptualising sexuality and rights that are
relevant to current socio-economic realities. For example, at the
Institute held in January 2003, the underlying theme was that of
fundamentalism. The theme was chosen keeping in mind the
resurgence of fundamentalism in India, particularly the Gujarat
carnage that took place in February 2002. The violence has
continued in Gujarat over the past year and is an extreme example
of the links between sexuality, nationalism, fundamentalism,
gender and the violation of human rights.
The theme was examined in diverse ways: a lecture accompanied by
reading assignments and reflections on ‘sexuality and the nation
state’ on one day. On another day participants saw a film about
how fundamentalist groups induct and train members. The film was
followed by a discussion. Later in the course, as participants
became more familiar with concepts of human rights, they engaged
in group work and had discussions about marginalisation, claims to
rights and who gets left out of making rights claims. Thus every
topic is examined in different ways and participants are
encouraged to make connections with other related issues.
The Institute challenges traditional power hierarchies between
‘students’ and ‘teachers’. While a faculty member from the
first year of the Institute returned as a participant during the
second year, a participant from the first Institute was a faculty
member at the second Institute. The faculty was open to discussion
and encouraged feedback from participants. The Institute also used
physical space as an effective pedagogical tool. The venue was a
management training centre which combined old world hospitality
with modern-day teaching facilities. The Institute created and
functioned in an atmosphere where participants interacted with
both peers and established scholars in order to optimise
interactive learning.
The course outcomes include: increased knowledge about the field
of sexual and reproductive health, particularly with respect to
adolescents and women; a deeper understanding of the intersections
between sexuality, rights, gender and health; an enhanced ability
to critically analyse programmes, research and policies in the
field, and the creation of a new generation of professionals in
the field of sexual and reproductive health.
Participants believe that the Institute has given them a
systematic way of conceptualising sexuality and rights and that
the tools of critical analysis that they have refined, has helped
them in the application of theory to their programmatic work.
Faculty members have also found their participation at the
Institute to be an enriching experience, especially because of the
Institute’s usage of a multi-disciplinary approach.
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