&ldquo;IIT Jodhpur is committed to impart quality education to facilitate the creation of qualified, competent and responsible human resources to meet the emerging technological challenges of the world. It is working towards creating an equitable learning platform that is positive, accessible and effective in the face of the modern societal and scientific advancements.

Flexibility in curriculum, in all its academic programs, encompassing elements of teaching, research, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship is the most unique feature of IIT Jodhpur. The Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the National Mission on Cyber Physical Systems, has identified IIT Jodhpur as a Technology &amp; Innovation Hub in the area of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. The institute has also been nominated as the coordinator for the Jodhpur City and Knowledge Cluster by the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.

The sprawling 852-acre IIT Jodhpur campus is a majestic tribute to the deep-rooted diverse cultural heritage of the region. The campus is an architectural masterpiece, which is slated to become an international exemplar of sustainability with net-zero energy, and advanced water and waste management strategies.&rdquo;

IIT Jodhpur

This paper explores the shifting and contemporary manifestations of menstrual taboos in central Kerala, India, particularly through the evocation of zoomorphic language and symbolism. It specifically focuses on a seemingly commonplace metaphor, pattiyayi (has become a dog), and argues that its connotative and cultural meanings have negative consequences for the construction of gender in Keralan society. The metaphor likens a menstruating woman to a dog. Further correlations between dogs and rabies patients culturally place the three categories – the domesticated carnivore, the person with a stigmatized illness, and the menstruating woman – as liminal entities, equivalent by association. Additionally, examining dog idioms (patti) in Kottayam that refer to the Dalit castes, the paper elucidates how idiomatic expressions evince societal juxtapositions of menstruating women with socially disparaged castes. These allegorical concurrences also draw attention to how the body and its organic activities and the propensity of certain bodies to incur permanent and internal pollution are at the root of symbolic denigration and gender and caste hierarchies. Furthermore, through the Foucauldian perspective on language, the paper links the dog metaphor to a micro theory of power by signifying the role of gendered power relations and the coalescence of discursive and material processes in historically shaping it.

School of Liberal Arts (SoLA)

Anthrozoös

When a Woman “Becomes a Dog”: Metaphors of Menstruation in Central Kerala, India

This paper explores menstruation as a domain of kinship within and across three generations of women in central Kerala, India. Based on fieldwork, it shows that certain gendered practices of intimacy and care work in the context of menstruation produce kinship bonds among them, which the authors enunciate as ‘menstrual kinship.’ In the past, it was shared chiefly among consanguineal and affinal kinswomen and same-caste women, and became conspicuous only during public menarche rites and the separation of menstruating women. Presently, menstrual kinship extends to women outside the natal and marital family, often overturns the traditional perspectives of menstruation and actively contributes to maintaining the contemporary ‘invisibility’ of menstrual phenomena. The paper posits that regardless of its gendered nature and time-tethered transformations, ‘menstrual kinship’ has always existed as a realm that can release menstruation from conventional discourses of patriarchy and caste and aid in retrieving women’s phenomenological experiences and voices. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

World University root node

Ethnos

Menstrual kinship: Bonds of Intimacy and Care Work of Women in Central Kerala

This article describes the psychometric properties of a semantic differential scale developed to evaluate the attitudes towards menstruation among Roman Catholics in India, which is referred to as Menstrual Semantic Differential Scale (MSDS). For this purpose, the south Indian state of Kerala was chosen as the location. First, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the data collected from a sample of participants of different ages, gender, and caste groups. The analysis produced a 10 item scale with a tri-factorial structure that explained 74 percent of the variance. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis on a different sample established that the three-factor model was a good fit. Moreover, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the subscales ranged from 0.73 to 0.93, confirming the acceptable reliability of the instrument. The findings suggest that the MSDS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing attitudes towards menstruation among Roman Catholics in India. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Journal of Religion and Health

Psychometric Properties of the Semantic Differential Scale in Studying Attitudes Toward Menstruation among Roman Catholics in India

This paper enucleates menstruation as a sensory experience within and across three generations of women in central Kerala. Drawing heavily on the collected ethnographic data, it establishes that in central Kerala, until the second half of the 20th century, the practices surrounding menarche rites were employed as useful channels to aid a girl in internalizing the sensory order that the society deemed fit for a woman. Similarly, monthly menstruation was marked by compulsory sensory restraint to teach her the feminine virtues of moderation and obedience. However, this has undergone considerable transformation in present-day Kerala, owing to a variety of factors such as the community reform movements of the 19th century, the advent of certain aspects of consumer culture and the introduction of a modern, medical discourse of menstruation. For instance, a short analysis of the everyday sensory practices of contemporary women surrounding menstruation reveals a concurrence with the scheme of modernity to render menstruation and menstruating bodies as invisible. All of this emphasizes the fact that a woman’s sensorium has always been contingent upon the way in which her senses are socialized through menstrual practices, albeit differently at different points of time, in the history of central Kerala. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.