This article examines the mutual imbrication of gender and class that shapes how some transgender women seek incorporation into social hierarchies in postcolonial India. Existing literature demonstrates an association between transgender and middle-class-status in the global South. Through an 18-month ethnographic study in Bangalore from 2009 through 2016 with transgender women, NGO (nongovernmental organization) workers and activists, as well as textual analyses of media representations, I draw on “new woman” archetypes to argue that the discourses of empowerment and respectability that impacted middle-class cisgender women in late colonial, postcolonial and liberalized India also impact how trans women narrate their struggles and newfound opportunities. Trans woman identities are often juxtaposed to the identities of hijras, a recognized (yet socially marginal) group of working-class male-assigned gender-nonconforming people. Instead of challenging stereotypes of gender nonconformity most evident in the marginalization of hijras, some transgender women are at pains to highlight their difference from hijras. These trans women are from working-class backgrounds. It is partly their similarities in class location that propel trans women’s efforts to distinguish themselves from hijras. They employ the figure of the disreputable hijra to contain negative stereotypes associated with gender nonconformity, thus positioning their identities in proximity with middle-class respectable womanhood.

This article addresses a challenge for sociologists who teach at institutions located in unfamiliar cultural contexts through a photo elicitation project to develop students’ sociological imaginations while teaching the instructor about students’ social contexts. In introductory courses, we must present sociology as a field of study that is relevant for students’ lives and teach students to connect their experiences with sociological perspectives. For instructors unfamiliar with the social context shaping their students’ experiences, this is a daunting task since we need an adequate understanding of students’ lives to effectively teach them. Based on my experience teaching an introductory sociology course in Kazakhstan, I suggest a semester-long project that combines photo elicitation with sociological analysis to (1) teach students to apply the sociological imagination to their own lives and (2) enable teachers to learn about students’ social contexts, thus making them better equipped at teaching students how to analyze their lives.

Ethnographers have amassed a large body of literature on exotic dance and strip clubs. However, this literature contains little information about strip club managers and the work they perform "behind the curtain." This article draws on participant observation in strip clubs and semistructured interviews with managers of strip clubs to explore how managers must work to mitigate the consequences of a payment and staffing structure that exacerbates competition between dancers for tips. Managers are keenly aware of the negative effects of competition between dancers, and they employ motivational tactics to manage the dancers through economic precarity, such as normalizing uncertainty, encouraging self-blame, and using "teamwork" discourses to inculcate a sense of solidarity among dancers and to diffuse the competitive environment in strip clubs. This article reveals how managers strive to normalize and legitimate the precarious work of exotic dancing, contributing to the literatures on exotic dance and tipped employment.

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