https://www.poulamiroychowdhury.info/poulami-roychowdhury daily 1.0 2025-10-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f870d17ea5ae1056249d75d/1602686232706-4QAILBI7ZRG63ZKKT355/bear.png About Me https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f870d17ea5ae1056249d75d/1602691680845-Z0PXLLJFMEWEBCTW5J84/Front_Roychowdhury_CapableWomenIncapableStates.JPG About Me - Book American Sociological Association, Human Rights Section, Gordon Hirabayashi Book Award 2022 American Sociological Association, Distinguished Book Award, Honorable Mention 2022 Eastern Sociological Society, Mirra Komarovsky Book Award 2022 Law and Society Association, Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Honorable Mention 2022 Capable Women, Incapable States is available in hardcopy, paperback, and e-book through Oxford University Press. Gender-based violence is a heavily politicized issue in India with diverse organizations supporting women’s legal claims. Meanwhile, Indian law enforcement personnel are sexist and have limited abilities to enforce the law. In Capable Women, Incapable States I ask how women claim rights within these conditions. How do rights negotiations impact gender inequality and reframe the boundaries of legality and state authority? This book relies on data gathered through participant observation and in-depth interviews. I find that women do not seek rights by following legal procedure. Instead, they mobilize collective threats and do the work of the state themselves. They behave this way because organized actors train them to do so and because law enforcement personnel respond favorably to organized pressure. Women who are threatening and hustle around, those who complete case processing duties, negotiate extra-legal settlements, and deploy violence move ahead with their claims. Capable Women, Incapable States asks readers to consider the limits of existing theories of gender and governance, much of which are based on the histories of post-welfare state. In contexts where enforcement capacity is low and organized pressure high, women do not relate to the state as “good victims” in need of protection. Rather, to be able to interact with the state at all, they must act “capable.” The book considers how women’s “capability” holds the promise of empowerment while simultaneously threatening women’s personal security and undermining state sovereignty. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f870d17ea5ae1056249d75d/1602689254092-677WN2DCBP9K7TWUNJIS/Book+Cover+1_Roychowdhury+photograph.JPG About Me - Contact Poulami Roychowdhury Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Brown University 111 Thayer Street, Providence, RI, 02912 poulami_roychowdhury@brown.edu