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History Nonfiction Reference/Guide/Manual Social Sciences

Hijras, Sangomas, and Their Translects

By Chantal Zabus and Samir Kumar Das, 2020

This essay focuses on hijras in India and on male women sangomas in Zulu gender-differentiated possession cults in South Africa. We approach these individuals through the travelling concept of “translects”, in the sense in which hijras and sangomas as “transgender individuals” cultivating a culture-specific, gender liminality use words to refer to themselves, their body parts, sexual orientation, societal rituals and practices, usually not in the dominant or standard language and often in a language form intelligible only to them.

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