“In this powerful, provocative, brilliant work of qualitative analysis and feminist theory, Srila Roy reveals queer and feminist activism of the last few decades in India as a story of the government of both society and of self, constituted by entanglements of historical and ongoing politics rather than one co-opted by the advent of neoliberal market reforms. Changing the Subject is essential reading for any understanding of how feminism and queer feminisms produce subjects and subjectivities.” - Inderpal Grewal, coeditor of Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism
“Through close ethnographic study of two feminist organizations in West Bengal, Srila Roy deftly demonstrates the promises and failures of the alignment between neoliberalism and feminism—in which each project relies on and is irreducible to the other. Offering fresh and counterintuitive arguments about feminist and queer politics in India, co-optation, and neoliberal governmentality in the Global South, Changing the Subject will be an integral part of the story of social justice movements everywhere capitalism and its antagonists meet.” - Naisargi N. Dave, author of Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics
"Reading this book has been one of the most refreshing and enchanting experiences precisely because of the generosity and care with which the author engages with her interlocutors. Their praxes are foregrounded because she makes sure that these accounts are not burdened by heavy theorisation." - Serawit B. Debele, Agenda
"Changing the Subject brilliantly unpacks the different governmentalities at work in contemporary neoliberal West Bengal and within the activist and NGO world. Srila Roy shows that it is precisely within the intimate and complex interaction between processes of governance and the self that the possibility of self-making within and against dominant norms takes place." - Catherine Rottenberg, Sociological Review
"There is no doubt that this is an important and topical book, filling a very real gap. It is provocative in its conceptualisation and therefore an extremely productive addition to multiple areas of inquiry, including neo-liberalism and social movements, queer movements, feminist fields, development studies among others. It invites one to engage with this version of the story to interrogate it and multiply the many other possible stories of this moment in the life of the feminist world-making project." - Sneha Gole, Economic and Political Weekly
"Examining our participant observation methods to include the digital presences of our subjects—contours already present in Roy's analysis—and responses to our transnational queer feminist pedagogy in various contexts are two of the many new directions opened by the incisive analyses offered in Changing the Subject." - Kanika Batra, Anthropology & Humanism
"Through her research and critique, she demonstrates powerfully a praxis against neoliberal, nationalist, and nativist logics. Srila Roy's book is a vibrant and richly ethnographic contribution to debates on political futures now." - Bridget Kenny, Anthropology & Humanism
"Roy’s groundbreaking work, Changing the Subject, emerges as a beacon. . . . Changing the Subject offers different ways to think of feminism’s co-optation in the context of global neoliberalism by thinking of feminism’s entanglement with the forms of power, encouraging a deeper understanding of its multifaceted impact on individual transformation and societal change. . . . Thorough, meticulous ethnographic analysis reveals how feminist and queer political organizations negotiate their roles within broader power dynamics, engaging with and transforming prevailing governmentalities." - Kiran Raveendran, Women's Studies
"The proficiency and ease with which [Roy] threads together the fluid entanglements within and between feminism, queerness, neoliberal governmentality and the self, is awe-inspiring; especially for a reader incapable of articulating such deep connections. In addition, theorizing such entanglements and recounting powerful feminist subaltern stories from the margins, has opened new pathways to imagine self-(re)making and feminism in a neoliberal age." - Amya Agarwal, Doing Sociology
"In Changing the Subject, Srila Roy is clear that she is not calling for celebration by looking past binaries of cooptation and pure politics. Rather, the book seeks to account for a messy practice of feminist worldmaking that is imbricated in, and simultaneously refusing of many intersecting axes of power. The book is, nevertheless, cautiously and critically hopeful: the quality that to my mind makes it equally a compelling read for its conceptual complexity, and likely a good introduction to Indian feminism and its struggles for undergraduate readers." - Sneha Krishnan, Gender, Place & Culture
"Roy convincingly argues that feminists both in India and elsewhere should not remain attached to a ‘proper feminist subject’ against whom the self might always be judged as lacking, but rather allow for ambivalence and uncertainty (p. 159)." - Stephanie Clare, Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory
"Roy offers an honest, nuanced account of the real-life complexities of activism. . . . In a context where critique veers too often toward cancel culture, reflecting desires for political purity, Roy’s book offers a useful reminder of the fact that feminist and queer struggles are complex and contradictory – and worth pursuing, in all of their inevitable messiness." - Elaine Coburn, International Feminist Journal of Politics
"In Changing the Subject, sociologist Srila Roy proposes taking a fresh look at the issue. . . . This book is an important read not only for those interested in the women’s movement in India, but also for those wanting to participate in the discussions around queer feminist practices and theory in the twenty-first century." - Virginie Dutoya, Varia
