This study examines how the practice of Chhaupadi, a traditional Nepalese custom that restricts menstruating women from participating in their daily activities, is being challenged and negotiated by women. A thorough analysis utilized interview data from 11 women in Dhanshingpur village in Nepal, revealing that Chhaupadi is not an unchanging cultural norm. Instead, it undergoes agentic actions—scrutiny, questioning, challenge, and negotiation by women. Those adhering to the practice actively negotiated its extent, not passively accepting societal norms. Factors like new information, external influences, community values, family relationships, and personal beliefs played a role. Changes in Chhaupadi rules indicate a shift toward flexibility. Women's agentic actions, leveraging circumstances to tailor the practice to their preferences, result in a more adaptable compliance among Nepalese women.
The phenomenon of women avoiding marriage and childbirth has recently caused heated discussion in China. However, limited attention has been given to the reasons for this phenomenon and to their identity construction from a linguistic perspective. To fill this gap, this study employs corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis with legitimation as a theoretical framework to analyze the reasons of unmarried Chinese women for avoiding marriage and childbirth and their identity construction. The findings indicate that, influenced by macro-level political, meso-level social, and micro-level personal factors, these women predominantly define their identities through 2 dimensions: self-affirmation and self-stigmatisation. This discourse is articulated via several discursive legitimation strategies, including authorization, moral evaluation, rationalization, and mythopoesis. By systematically examining the overarching discourse, this article aims to assist unmarried Chinese women in managing their fears and cultivating a balanced, rational sense of identity for future decision-making.
This paper examines the emergence and development of mixed-race categories in South Korea in the context of the shift in the state's governing practices from the postwar period to the present. In particular, “mixed-race” serves as a conceptual framework for tracing the formation of Korea's racial state with respect to the distinct categories of Amerasians and the children of multicultural families. Drawing on theoretical approaches to racism, racial state, and biopower, I examine the treatment of mixed-race individuals in the regulation of the Korean population since the middle of the previous century. I document a shift in the subject-positions of these individuals from the status of homo sacer to that of homo economicus, each of which is associated with distinct modes of racism. The findings presented here have implications for critical mixed-race studies in Korea and East Asia more broadly and for expanding the understanding of the nexus of race, state, and power.