Amy L. Allocco, assistant professor of religious studies, presented a paper titled "Earning respect, securing survival: Gender negotiations in a Tamil healing network" during the 2011 Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisc., Oct. 20-23.
Allocco’s presentation focused on the ritual and narrative performances of a female Hindu religious healer in South India who accesses male healing networks in public space at a popular Hindu goddess temple during the new moon day festival each month. She carried out ethnographic fieldwork at this temple between 2005 and 2007 and conducted follow-up research there when she was in India this past summer.
Allocco’s paper was invited as part of a panel titled “Strategies for hope, strategies for survival: Gendered social networks in India and its diaspora” that included presentations on Indian women’s trade networks in the Fiji Islands, the networks that develop out of Hindu devotional gatherings in North India and Indian women’s domestic violence support networks in the United States. The Annual Conference on South Asia draws more than 650 regional experts from all disciplines who present in more than 100 academic sessions over the course of the meeting.