From Carcerality to Impunity: Rethinking State Violence As Gendered Governance in India and Mexico.

Through our collaborative work on gender-based violence in India and Mexico we develop a framework to think through impunity as a form of gendered governance. Whereas critiques of carceral feminism--heavy reliance punishment and punitive solutions for gender-based violence--have clarified how feminist projects can also embolden the carceral state (Bernstein 2010, 2012), these critiques are primarily focused on the U.S state practices. By focusing on impunity as a form of gendered governance, we suggest the need to examine state complicity in perpetuating gender-based violence, as well as extrajudicial, and extralegal violence deployed by states to normalized and legitimize gender inequalities.

In contrast to anthropological and sociological understanding of impunity as state “inaction” and a lack of state accountability, we theorize impunity as a form of state governance that heavily relies on everyday legality to undo and repackage violence. For example, state actors and institutions go as far as simulating due process and justice with the expectation that those affected by gender-based violence be satisfied with farcical legal or extralegal outcomes or processes. Our analysis of two cases of gender-based violence from India and Mexico sheds light on different mechanisms of state impunity as gendered governance and how feminist activists use law to not only counter impunity but also to counter ethical effects of state's inaction and neglect.