Surviving Bhopal: Dancing Bodies, Written Texts, and Oral Testimonials of Women in the Wake of an Industrial Disaster [Hardcover]

On December 2-3, 1984, India witnessed arguably the world s worst industrial disaster in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, which continues to this day as an economic, medical, environmental, and political disaster. Surviving Bhopal draws on oral testimonials of the affected community and analyzes the cause and aftermath of the disaster from the perspective of those who suffered the severe consequences of systemic failure and travesty of justice. The event resulted in a resistance movement, led by women, against corporate and state power. Mukherjee explores the underlying gender politics, showing how activism challenged and redefined the contemporary model of development.The Killer Factory: A Disaster Waiting to Happen Monstrous Memories: 'Re-living' the Night of the Disaster Bhopal Lives On: The Many Faces of the Continuing Disaster?Women as Bread Earners: Shattered Lives and the Relentless Struggle for Survival 'We are Flames not Flowers': The Inception of Activism 'No More Bhopals': Women's Right to Knowledge and Control of their Bodies 'Dancing in the Streets': Protest, Celebration and Modes?of Self Expression

From the outset this superb book does more than represent the voices of those maimed or bereaved; it suggests that the social costs of industrial progress have never really been calculated for the poor. At the same time, the book s latter chapters document the ways in which survivors have struggled for better futures, how affected individuals (in particular, women) have acquired new habits of resistance and autonomy, and how oral history itself can assist in the acts of both remembering and analysing the politics of the disaster. Lucid and remarkable. - Times Higher Education

Suroopa Mukherjee's important book tells how Bhopali women from one of the poorest sections of society on earth have thrown off the veil and led a spirited, inspiring resistance against corruption and injustice by a multinational corporation and its political allies.lƒ<