UNGENDERING THUGGEE: A RELOOK AT THE FEMALE THUGS
UNGENDERING THUGGEE: A RELOOK AT THE FEMALE THUGS

Summary/Abstract: Thuggee as a distinct class of criminal homicide has generated much interest ever since the British colonizers in India exposed it in the nineteenth century. While the male thugs were certainly more common, female practitioners of thuggee were not entirely unknown. Curiously, both colonial writers and contemporary researchers have conceptualized thuggee as an all-male activity, thereby consigning the female thugs to oblivion. By bringing the focus back on the female thugs, this paper questions the gendering of thuggee. It also shows how the acknowledgement of the existence of the female thugs destabilizes both colonial constructions of thuggee and contemporary understandings of the subject.

• Details
• Contents