A POSTCOLONIAL INQUIRY ON THE INSTITUTIONAL ROLE OF THIRD GENDER HOMES IN CONSTRUCTING MARGINALIZED IDENTITIES

Abstract: Eurocentric dominant Epistemologies of "home" in South Asian architecture are deep-rooted in a binary, heteronormative, archetypal, historically framed, and reinforced by colonial governing power, based on the marriage-based or male-female household as the singular legitimate structure of domestic life, used to control a large region under a single Discourse of power. This study explores a new organization of the communal, gurumaa-centered homemaking Apparatus of the hijra (third-gender) community, signifying the Living tradition and partial grammar of hijra homemaking, which is fundamentally different from binary domestic models, with a homemaking model grounded in institutional identity shaped by hijra communities' internal rules, authority structures, and cultural continuity.

According to existing scholarship, the complex arrangement of space in a home is disciplined by rules, customs, and routines that shape how people behave, producing distinct forms of identity. Home is not simply a shelter for dwelling but also a place that engenders an identity that is protected, reorganized, and reconstructed. Bangladeshi investigations of the homemaking observations of the marginalized hijra (third-gender) community remain underexplored. Unlike conventional households, hijra (third-gender) homes have traditionally adopted communal living patterns, centered on a central schooling space occupied by the gurumaa (guardian), a central regulatory position within the home's power structure—a politically complex organization of space.

The research is grounded in critical ethnography, spatial ethnography, narrative analysis, and thematic analysis, based on empirical data collected in Chattogram, Bangladesh. The study drew on postcolonial and spatial theories to examine the institutional features embedded in the spatial organization of hijra homes and to analyze how the unique spatial arrangement forms hijra (third-gender) identity. The research aims to illuminate how home shapes and is shaped by the distinct familial and communal structures of hijras, promoting a correlational knowledge of the relationship between hijra home and hijra identity. The findings identify four common attributes connected to home, family, and institution Belongingness, Training, Collectiveness, and Authority that function as survival daily practices within the hijra (third-gender) home. This research contributes to postcolonial Epistemologies of marginalized spatial practice by reconceptualizing the hijra (third-gender) home as an institution that constitutes hijra identity rather than merely serving as a dwelling.