Devadasis Organizing for Social Change: Discourses of Power and Resistance.

The present paper examines the implications of investigating power relations in organizing processes where the organizational structures are less stable and static, and where an intervention for social transformation occurs at the intersection of multiple and conflicting discourses. The paper is based on an ethnographic inquiry into an intervention program in India to change the socio-economic status of devadasis in Belgaum District of Karnataka State in South India. The paper focuses on how devadasis negotiate the power relations of which they are targeted subjects and what opportunities are available for resistance. The present paper emphasizes the importance of both sovereign and disciplinary power. The paper argues that discourses of domination and resistance combine and coordinate to produce emergent discourses of domination and resistance. However, these emergent discourses involve different actors with different interests and having different reasons for producing relationships of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]