Voices in the 'Gutter': Gender-based Violence in South Asian Graphic Narratives

Speaker: Barnana Baidya, SRM University-AP, India
Note: Zoom details available on request to [email protected]

This Talk aims to show that ‘family’ appears as a key site where gender-based violence becomes normalised in seemingly ordinary acts of obedience, control, surveillance and sexual oppression as seen in Sarah, Priya's Mirror and “Asha, Now”. It captures the forms of violence that are invisible and how the memories and suffering of such acts take a deep toll on the mind and body. Crucially, their visual code, based on gaze, framing, spatiality, repetition and the interplay of memory and the present, makes invisible violence perceptible. With showcasing the expressions of survivors' trauma, graphic narratives also contest the culture that help to make the trauma invisible, and provides safe places for resistance, healing, and agency.