Rape and the Trans/national Geographies of Discourse, Emotion and Affect in two World Newspapers

• In Event: 126 - Regular Session. Race, Class, and Gender: Domestic and International Intersections

Abstract

We examine how two newspapers in differing national contexts (the Times of India (TOI) and the New York Times (NYT)) have treated two rape cases that gained visibility in the trans/national media contemporaneously. We bring together the sociologies of discourse, emotion and affect in order to examine coverage in the two papers for a case of rape in Delhi, IN and in Steubenville, US in the latter part of 2012. We argue that while the NYT hypervisibilizes the Delhi rape as an instance of “Indian rape culture” whilst invisibilizing the Steubenville rape, the TOI only covers Delhi but focuses instead on societal responses, agency and social change within the Indian nation. Thus while the TOI may be seen as fostering public discourse around a national tragedy with the goal of highlighting and even encouraging social change, the NYT may be seen as invoking older colonialist tropes to reconsolidate the US as site of progress, democracy and freedom (particularly for women) in relation to the violent, barbaric and misogynistic other. Ultimately we are already beginning to see the impact of this racialization of rape and sexual assault, with differential levels and kinds of activism, funding, and scholarship committed to each case.

Authors

• Vrushali Patil, Florida International University

• Bandana Purkayastha, University of Connecticut