Dalit Feminism in Tokyo: Analogy and Affiliation in Transnational Dalit Activism

Abstract

This article discusses different conceptions and translations of the devadasi system in transnational Dalit feminist activism. I focus specifically on activist participation at the 1994 Asia Tribunal on Women’s Human Rights in Tokyo, Japan and the construction of an analogy between the experiences and struggles of devadasis and that of ‘military comfort women’, i.e. women from Japan’s former colonies who were abducted and raped by the Japanese military during World War II. I argue that strategic claims of commonality are part of the process of making specific, local practices legible to a global audience and that these sorts of claims also enable transnational feminist activism and solidarity.