Abstract

Based on life-history narratives of 57 women in India who married Indian-origin men settled
(primarily) in the West and interviews with 21 practitioners, we document the neglect, abuse and
instrumental deprivation of the women’s rights in the process of transnational abandonment.
Gendered local socio-cultural milieus and economic norms contribute to these harms in a context
where women’s identity and social status are closely connected to marriage. However, these
harms are enabled and sustained by transnational formal-legal frameworks which make women
subordinate citizens. Widening the explanatory lens for understanding domestic violence beyond
the family and community, we argue that in a globalised world, (inter)state policies serve to
construct categories of ‘disposable women’ who can be abused and abandoned with impunity.