Allocco’s article focuses on alcohol abuse, suicide, and gendered protest in Hindu ritual performances that she documented during field research in Tamil-speaking South India.
Amy L. Allocco, professor of religious studies and director of the Multifaith Scholars program at Elon University, has published a new article in the International Journal of Hindu Studies examining how ritual practices in Tamil-speaking South India engage with alcohol abuse and suicide and serve as a site for a gendered ethic of refusal. The article, “Alcohol, Suicide, and Gendered Protest in Tamil Hindu Invitations to the Dead,” appeared in a recent special issue focused on Hindu narratives and practices in the contemporary world, guest edited by Tracy Pintchman (Loyola University Chicago).
Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Tamil Nadu, Allocco analyzes Hindu rituals that invite deceased women to return as protective family deities called pūvāṭaikkāris. Although these rituals were traditionally reserved for auspicious wives who died “good” deaths, in recent years, women who died via suicide have also featured in these rites, particularly in response to their husbands’ alcohol abuse. Through close attention to ritual dialogue and performance, the article shows how these ceremonies create space for confronting gendered suffering and social injustice, particularly the effects of male alcoholism on women’s lives. Allocco argues that these ritual encounters allow both living and deceased women to voice grievances, demand accountability, and articulate forms of ethical protest. In doing so, the rituals illuminate broader social realities in contemporary India, where suicide rates have risen sharply and debates over alcohol policy remain politically charged.