The Question of the Jamaat

This article follows prominent narratives about the transfeminine jamaat. Many transfeminine people in South Asia live in kinship units called jamaats, with adopted mothers, sisters, and daughters. While jamaat members often see this chosen kinship as nurturing and affirming, jamaat outsiders frequently describe the institution as restrictive and politically regressive. Even within nonprofits that employ jamaat members, criticism and anxiety around jamaat bonds are routinely expressed and used to promote initiatives that locate healthy and true kinship only within the natal family. The author draws from her interlocutors’ experiences to think through differing conceptions of intimacy and freedom within the nonprofit and show how dominant narratives about the jamaat deploy the vocabulary of liberal and rights-based politics to position it as “bad.” In particular, the author shows how such a refusal of the jamaat is a deeply casteist maneuver that shores up dominant caste norms of family, love, and labor.