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Title of presentation: Semiotics of Rape: Law, Scale, and Jurisdiction

Keynote speaker: Professor Rupal Oza, Hunter College CUNY


70 percent of rape cases, I was told, end in an illegal out-of-court settlement colloquially known as a compromise. In this talk, I consider how compromised cases animate questions of jurisdiction and autonomy at different scales. At each scale, these illegal out-of-court settlements generate different apprehensions and forms of relief. Based on empirical research in rural Haryana, small state northwest of Delhi, compromised cases drew the ire and concern of activists concerned that victims and their families agreed to these illegal settlements out of coercion. In other instances, though, some of the women I spoke with consented to compromise their cases, revealing a different set of possibilities and subjectivities. What did justice mean in these cases? Conflicting alliances and contradictory outcomes are part of the story of compromise, in which what is just is not simple or easily discernable. In an effort to excavate the complex ramifications of these cases, I draw on Audra Simpson’s (2014) theorizing of refusal as a way to consider compromise not as a failure, but as generative of autonomy and deliberate disengagement.

Non-Presenting Participants