Adam Smith Business School

Dr Daniela Pianezzi, University of Verona.

"Accounting for Transgenders: Khwajasira Community in Pakistan"
Wednesday, 3 May. 1 pm
Wards Library

Abstract

Starting their adult life as dispossessed, we analyze (transgenders) khwajasiras’ life as performances consisting of a series of economic ‘acts’. These acts include chitai, pesha, bakhra, gifts to gurus (barapan), gifts to/from lovers, sex work (pun), begging (dhenga and badhai/wadhai), and financial assistance to biological families. Triggered by and perpetuating primordial dispossession, these financial and calculative practices form the identity of the khwajasiras in what they aptly describe as a “play”. Some of these calculative practices allow khwajasiras to gain recognition and create a communal relationship through a relational and existential form of dispossession. At the same time, other calculative practices reflect the generation of privative dispossession within the community, i.e. the dispossessed further dispossessing the fellow dispossessed (Butler and Athanasiou, 2013). Different calculative practices thus reflect different forms of dispossession, reflecting compassion and love coexisting with competition and exploitation, causing new forms of facilitations and precarity for the members of the community. By focusing on the way khwajasarai give a (financial) ‘account’ of their daily life, our study

contributes to the few existing studies on “the gendered nature of accounting” by demonstrating alternative configurations of gender performances.

Bio

Daniela is Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies at the University of Verona (Italy) and Visiting scholar at the University of Essex (UK) and at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa (Italy). Her works have been published in various international journals, including the Journal of Business Ethics, Human Relations, International Review of Administrative Science, and Critical Perspectives on Accounting. She is a member of the editorial committee for the Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies (JAEE), co-founder of the Research Centre RE-WOrk: REsearching for REmaking Work and Organizations, and member of the Research Centre on the Politics and Theories of Sexuality - POLITESSE of the University of Verona. Daniela's research investigates the norms and values that organize our life.

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For further information, please contact business-school-research@glasgow.ac.uk

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First published: 3 May 2023