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This dissertation examines the relationships between citizenship and sexuality and gender in imperial formations, through an archaeology/genealogy of the subject position of those classified as the hijra. Combining Lacan's symbolic order with Foucault's historic a priori in order to understand empire, this project examines two main questions: how were sexuality and gender -- notably manifest in the subject position of the hijra -- used as forms of political control in colonial India; and how transformations in empire were produced through changing representations of the hijra. Consequently, the hijra represent a key point -- or, in the words of Lacan, le point de capiton -- in the anchoring of a field of meaning that enabled colonial governance in both a diachronic and synchronic fashion; in other words, the figure of the hijra was translated by the colonial writers in such a way as to facilitate the creation of an ideology that privileged British understandings of sexuality and masculinity, not to mention civility, modernity, and, to a degree, religiosity, establishing British authority in the region. This project consists of a textual analysis of nineteenth-century British documents and writings, especially historical records, such as ethnographies, translations, census information, official reports, intra-government communications, and legal documents from the late eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, with a focus on the nineteenth. Through an examination of these sources, this dissertation explores how this group was translated by the colonial authorities; that is, it queries the conditions under which they were represented as a group that was constituted by those who were defined by sexual and gendered characteristics -- eunuchs, hermaphrodites, and impotent men.

Before European colonialism, inhabitants of Guyana were Amerindians scattered across the “land of many waters” (Glasgow 1970:6; Rabe 2005:5). During the era of imperialism (1499-Guyanese Independence May 1966), the Dutch and British utilized indigenous and African slave labor as well as indentured servants from Asia to harvest cash crops (Glasgow 1970:131; Whitehead 2010:53). The British brought indentured servants across the kala pani, or dark water, from India to Guyana under the pretense of a better life. Under the harsh restrictions of colonial life, the Indian indentured laborers, negatively referred to as coolies, were culturally suppressed. Virtually, all aspects of daily life and institutions were altered, including such apparently natural areas of social life as gender. This thesis examines the possible existence of hijra in early 21st century Indo-Guyanese society as a third gender identity from India, that survived the transatlantic separation from India, colonial oppression and postcolonial suppression (Bockrath 2003:83; Nanda 1998; Reddy 2003: 163-189; Reddy 2005a:256-266).

The hijra subculture in Bangladesh remains one of the most marginalized and violated minority groups in Bangladesh. However, with recent legislative change in Bangladesh, the group has gained legal recognition in that a third official gender has been introduced. The people that conform to the third gender are now allowed to, in any formal and official documents within the nation, list hijra as their gender. This thesis investigates the media representation of the hijra movement’s struggle before, and after the legislative change. To serve this end, the productions of three leading English speaking media platforms have been analyzed. The aim is to further increase the understanding of the representation and visibility of the hijra rights movement, and the hijra situation in the public sphere of media. Subsequently, the study concerns the normative structures in Bangladesh, and how media as a communicative tool can focus the audience’s attention, whilst adding to these structures or challenging them. The context of culture, media as a tool for communication, and the functions of social constructivism constitute the foundation for the analysis. The investigation consists mainly of a textual discourse analysis of chosen articles from the three different media platforms.

This thesis explores the construction and use of the hijra figure in fictional literature. It argues that hijras are utilised as both symbols of deviance and central points around which wider anti-sociality circulates. In order to contextualise these characters and offer a deeper understanding of the constructed nature of their representations, this thesis works with four frames of reference. It draws respectively on Hindu mythology (chapter one), the Mughal empire and its use of eunuchs, which the authors of fiction use to extend their representations of hijras (chapter two), British colonialism in India and its ideological frameworks which held gender deviance to be a marker of under-civilisation (chapter three) and the postcolonial period, in which hijras continue to fight for their rights whilst attempting to survive in an increasingly marginal social position (chapter four). Examining the literary material through the lens of these four frameworks shows, historically, the movement of the hijras in the public imaginary away from being symbols of the sacred to symbols of sexuality and charts the concurrent shift in their level of social acceptance. In terms of their literary representations, it is seen that authors draw upon material informed by each of the four frameworks, but never in simple terms. Rather, they work imaginatively but often restrictively to produce an injurious or detrimental image of the hijras, and they apply multiple historical frameworks to the same narratives and individual characters, with the result of marking them as timeless figures of eternal otherness. The image of hijras as sacred beings in Hindu mythology is recast as them being terrifying figures who are liable to curse binary-gendered citizens if their extortionate demands are not met (chapter one). The political prominence of Mughal eunuchs and their position as guardians of sexual boundaries and purity become treasonous political manipulation through the enactment of secret plots, often involving sexual violence, to impact on political events (chapters two and three). The criminalisation of hijras as a means of pushing them out of public visibility becomes naturalised anti-sociality and a shadowy existence at the social margins (chapter three). Finally, in a public environment which has both seen a major increase in campaigns for hijra rights and acceptance, but which has met with fierce opposition, the hijras are overburdened with associations which render them as hyperbolic and ultimately unsustainable figures (chapter four). Ultimately, these constructions facilitate sensationalised storylines set in the criminal underworld. Whilst the thrilling nature of these stories has the potential to capture a readership, this comes at the expense of the hijra characters, who are rendered as inherent criminals, sexual aggressors and wilfully anti-social. Campaigns to protect hijras as a third-gender category, guarantee their legal rights and end their criminalisation for the first time since 1860 have been publicly prominent since 2001; these campaigns are now coming before parliament and formal decisions are expected imminently. Examining understandings of hijras outside of their communities is thus politically timely and necessary for disrupting the cycle of overburdening them as society's gendered scapegoats, contributing to a project of more nuanced understandings necessary for their social integration.