gender, power, and legal pluralism: Rajasthan, India

Villagers in rural northeastern Rajasthan, India, most frequently take their disputes to either the local village councils or the state courts. But the councils and courts are manipulated by powerful men; women and low‐status men cannot find their justice in these forums. Stretching the boundaries of the law to include the work of a Muslim spiritual teacher and healer, or maulavi, can help us understand the victims of the central legal systems. Both men and women may seek remedies to social and physical problems by visiting a maulavi, and for women, a trip to the healer may become a form of resistance to male ideological hegemony. Attention to spirit possession, stress‐related illnesses, and traditional healers lends us new insight into cultural conceptions of justice, resistance, and the role of gender in legal pluralism. [legal pluralism, healers, India, Islam, women and resistance]