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Paper short abstract

This paper theorises Gender-Based Violence as everyday, ritualised, and morally legitimised practice. Drawing on ethnographic research on Sati (widow immolation) rituals, it shows how GBV is reproduced through social norms and political culture during periods of democratic and institutional crisis.

Paper long abstract

This paper advances a theoretically grounded understanding of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) as a continuum embedded in the everyday lives of women. Moving beyond event-based and juridical approaches, it conceptualises GBV as sustained through ritualised practices, symbolic meanings, and moral economies that render gendered harm socially legitimate.

Drawing on long-term qualitative and ethnographic research conducted in the state of Rajasthan in India, the paper examines how everyday forms of violence (such as social surveillance, honour-based regulation, symbolic humiliation, and the ritualisation of women’s suffering) operate as mechanisms through which gender inequality is normalised and reproduced. These practices are not residual cultural phenomena but are deeply entangled with caste hierarchies, political culture, and local configurations of power. In moments of socio-political uncertainty, ritualised violence functions as a stabilising normative resource, reaffirming community boundaries while disciplining gendered bodies.

The paper engages feminist theories of violence as a continuum, Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, and scholarship on social norms and moral legitimacy to demonstrate why technocratic and legalistic GBV interventions often fail to disrupt deeply embedded structures of harm. Methodologically, it underscores the importance of ethnographic and reflexive approaches for capturing forms of violence that remain invisible to policy metrics and legal thresholds. By foregrounding the cultural infrastructures that sustain GBV, the paper argues that durable social norm change requires confronting the moral and ritual logics that sustain violence. This approach offers critical insights for building community, consensus, and justice-oriented development pathways in times of global interregnum.