Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-118).

This dissertation proposes a two-part thesis on the South Asian diaspora in the Caribbean within contemporary Indo-Guyanese literature. First, Indo-Guyanese writers such as David Dabydeen, Oonya Kempadoo, and Narmala Shewcharan are using the genre of historical fiction to posit counter narratives that undermine dominant narratives of South Asian culture and gender roles. Second, even as these writers struggle against dominant narratives, their texts reinscribe the colonial discourse and rearticulate racial stereotypes. As argued in this dissertation, the dismal historical realities of ethnic tensions and failed anti-colonial tactics do not sufficiently address the flexible strategies often chosen by the characters and authors to navigate through racial and political convolution. By analyzing works by Indo-Guyanese, I attempt to open a conversation about race, place, and politics, offering some external viewpoints and revealing some important insights into the problems and contradict ions in Guyana. The value of these works is the calling for a connection to history as both a positive example (texts that show gaps in which characters can negotiate social borders) and a negative model (works that amplify racial tension and dismiss the divide and conquer strategy of the colonizer). This twofold thesis develops along three crucial historical periods - the dislocation from India and the heavy burden of indentured labor in British Guiana (1838-1917), ethnic victimization during post-independence (1970), and the subsequent flight to the First World (1980-1990): migration, nationalism, and exodus. / Chapter 1 reveals the challenges of indentured labor through East Indian and African characters that disrupts racial and gender borders in David Dabydeen's The Counting House. Chapter 2 exposes the racial tensions following independence as the newly formed government creates an atmosphere of distrust in Oonya Kempadoo's and Narmala Shewcharan's debut novels. Chap suggests the ramifications of exodus as Guyanese reconfigure their identity in a new location in David Dabydeen's narratives. This body of work by Indo-Guyanese plays upon the complex web of historical, political, and racial constructs that coexist simultaneously as authors acknowledge the limits and potential of their colonized history, of nationalist movements, and the rebuilding that is left in its wake. / by Savena Budhu. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The interlocked social struggles waged by overlapping and diverse Britons of color for racial and social equality and everyday survival is the dynamic corollary of the contradictions engendered by the ruling relations of racial differentiation and racism in Britain. Grassroots struggles against routine racist violence and state violence, conceptualized as politically interlinked, are the critical sites that contribute to the recursive racial domination experienced by Britons of color in contemporary Britain, and forms the key ethnographic research focus of this study. Prior studies have already critiqued the dominant state framework of viewing racist violence as random, de-racialized and nonpolitical events – as individual incidents, neighborhood disputes, inter-personal conflict, and robberies gone wrong. These studies have alternately identified the social dehumanizing functions of racist violence, the possessive local white territorialism that they materially support and their relationship with macro-level socio-economic crises and changing racial exclusion ideologies of the liberal democratic nation. What I add to these studies is the argument that the racial subordination and ruling relations inherent in the social processes of racist violence and, by formal extension, state violence are not only derivative of broader ideological forces or local social relations but are in fact constitutive of white racial state formation in Britain’s postcolonial era. I argue that the processes of racist violence and state violence are productive of the domination and hierarchy that is secured for whites, through unevenly empowered and routinized contestations within the re-configurations of white racial state formation and an emergent neoliberal-multicultural national security state. It is within this framework of analysis that the politics of black mobilization by Britons of color and their allies, in the context of contemporary multiculturalism’s contradictions, and against the many-sided form of racial subordination is made legible -- not as an anachronism -- but as socially meaningful, interlocked and politically urgent. / text

The main research question of this project asks: what role does Indian classical dance play in the identity formation of second generation Canadian women of South Asian origin as they negotiate their identities as Canadians living in a multicultural country? The research question is analyzed through the theoretical frameworks of both citizenship theory, identity theory, and Bourdieu’s notions of ‘habitus’, ‘field’, and cultural capital. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with dancers of 2 main dance styles (“Kathak” and “Bharatnatyam”) and of various ages over 18. Interviews are also conducted with a dance teacher/creative director and a dance company coordinator. Findings indicate that Indian classical dance influences identity formation in 3 main ways: in the way that the participants embody the dance forms of Kathak and/or Bharatnatyam, in the way they form their identities as individuals, and in the way they form their identities as multicultural Canadians.

The main research question of this project asks: what role does Indian classical dance play in the identity formation of second generation Canadian women of South Asian origin as they negotiate their identities as Canadians living in a multicultural country? The research question is analyzed through the theoretical frameworks of both citizenship theory, identity theory, and Bourdieu’s notions of ‘habitus’, ‘field’, and cultural capital. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with dancers of 2 main dance styles (“Kathak” and “Bharatnatyam”) and of various ages over 18. Interviews are also conducted with a dance teacher/creative director and a dance company coordinator. Findings indicate that Indian classical dance influences identity formation in 3 main ways: in the way that the participants embody the dance forms of Kathak and/or Bharatnatyam, in the way they form their identities as individuals, and in the way they form their identities as multicultural Canadians.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, August 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-265).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 178 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-178).

This thesis focuses on Nepalis living in Oslo and Ås, Norway, and ethnographically explores their food perceptions, habits and practices in relation to health and maternal health. With pre-existing experience of both biomedical and other understandings of health and wellbeing, the majority of my respondents could and did move between paradigms, on an individual basis deciding which to apply and when. Consequently, several demonstrated certain reasoned divergences from Norwegian state-endorsed dietary norms and expectations; differences that were, however, not simply reducible to ‘culture’. ‘Culture’ is shown here to be a favoured strategy of explanation within Norwegian public health research, which has dominated state health perceptions of all South Asians. Overall, four key arguments are advanced. Firstly, the need to disaggregate the category of ‘South Asian’, currently readily employed within public health research and policies worldwide to describe and problematise the foodways of highly diverse diaspora populations. The middle-class status of my Nepali respondents is delineated as a central example exposing the inaccuracy of such a homogenising generalisation. Secondly, that despite the hegemony of biomedical models of nutrition within health and ante-/postnatal wellbeing in Norway, my interlocutors moved between these and other ideas and practices of health and wellbeing. Describing their dietary habits and practices makes plain the narrowness of applying purely biomedically-predicated thinking to understanding these Nepalis’ foodways. Thirdly, that in ante-/postnatal care the biomedical model overprivileges the individual mother’s responsibility for her own health in order to benefit her child, ignoring the potential for alternative distributions of responsibility for, as well as emphasis on, both offspring and mother: the Nepalis I encountered showed a notable commitment to the mother’s wellbeing and also sense of pregnancy and postnatal care as a collective enterprise, relationally shaped. Fourthly, my Nepali respondents’ accounts provide a useful example demonstrating limitations to the perceived authority of Norwegian state advice on health in general. Well-informed and often highly educated, these Nepalis engaged only selectively with the state-endorsed guidance and services, instead drawing on other (re)sources – Nepali family and friends especially – to maintain health and wellbeing.

This thesis aims to shed light on the cultural and aesthetic implications of the relationship between Italy and India on and off the screens of Italy, following the expansion of Bollywood in Europe during the 90s. Bollywood's propagation abroad affected the identity of the South Asian diaspora, urban spaces and aesthetics which generated what Le Guellec - describing the arrival of Indians and Bollywood cinema to Paris - named as Bollywood/India mania. The study began with the exploration of the historical meaning of the term aesthetic in order to offer a contextualization on the sense of the aesthetic as a philosophy of art; furthermore, it established a background for further theoretical debate on South Asian diasporic identity formations within the entertainment industry of Italy. The research methods that predominated throughout this work were those of textual argumentation, aesthetic analysis, quantitative and qualitative questionnaires and interview data. The reasons for using different and interdisciplinary methods and approaches to offer an account on diasporic cultures, resided in the attempt to reveal the multiplicities of the "cultural and social" visible. The theoretical frame that this research intends to follow is through two quite distinct disciplines: aesthetic and cultural studies. The aim is to capitalise on the productive intersection of these two disciplines to analyse parts of the South Asian cultural text on the screen and beyond it as producers of transnational images imbued with melancholic memories and melancholically conceived spaces. This work will attempt to individuate the existence of representational patterns based on the aesthetic of melancholy with its nuances and metamorphoses, which represents, narrates and constructs South Asian and/or fused identities socially and culturally on the screens of Italy. The notion of semiosphere as elaborated by Jury Lotman, was utilised to define the cultural and dialogic dynamics of mainstream products that move constantly closer to each other generating original "formats" characterised by novel transnational and multiple identities. Throughout this thesis, the emphasis was placed on the "encounters", the "journeys" and the "sharing" of cultures, hence highlighting the possible conditions of belonging contemporaneously through multiple modalities: mentally, psychologically and experientially to multiplicities of cultures. In addition, the notion of "world culture" was contemplated in an attempt to practically support what Gilroy, in Black Atlantic, shaped as "inter-cultural" and translational formations.

This study analyzes the reactions of interracial relationships within the South Asian Diaspora via film and literature focused on the United States and England. The films examined are Mississippi Masala (1992) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002), and the literature-utilized focuses on cultural identity, interracial dating, the importance of marriage, the Indian community, and gender roles focused on women within the diaspora. The films used encourage the idea of interracial relationships as acceptable and give South Asian women the confidence to be more independent. The intention of this research is to analyze the importance of cultural blending, independence, heritage, and traditional values. The focus behind this research is to understand the battle of traditional versus modern roles for women in the South Asian diaspora, and how independence can be viewed as a form of dishonoring and humiliating their families when they step outside of the cultural box. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection