Expansion

This chapter takes the 2018 municipal election in Dehradun, India, as a setting through which to explore the processes of personhood for women politicos. It introduces the ‘topography for self’ as an analytical framework to examine the socio-historical possibilities and foreclosures for self. Gendered emotional repertoires and opportunities for affective experiences shape these possibilities and foreclosures, with three consequences. First, women political workers identify as ‘social workers’, pointing to the importance of the topography for self in shaping the characteristics of female and male politicians. Second, reservations for women and concomitant opportunities for new self-imaginaries and self-enactments are empowering, in the sense that they increase the possibilities for self. Third, consequent affective investments in a sense of self as ‘social workers’ facilitate the exploitation of women’s political labour.