Stereotypes emphasizing passivity, docility, and uncleanliness all contribute to cultural (mis)understandings of Canadian women of South Asian background. Such understandings feed dominant racist discourses, including "bodily" discourses related to fitness and health. In turn, such discourses have "effects" in terms of how women approach bodily practices. This study focuses on the constructions of health and fitness among ten 20--25 year old second generation South-Asian Canadian women who now reside in Ottawa or Toronto. Based on conversations with these women, the study focuses on how they construct health and fitness as well as the types of institutional and cultural discourses they draw from. Results show how these women struggle to construct an identity that speaks to their experience of being South Asian Canadian in that they often unsettle, contest, negotiate and resist normative constructions of both "South Asian" and "Canadian" identities. Results also highlight the impact of these negotiations on the young women's constructions of health, and on their position as un/fit and un/healthy subjects within cultural discourses. Insights from this study fill an important gap in the Canadian literature on health and fitness as well as inform contemporary debates regarding health policy and health education programs for South-Asian Canadian women.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/26643 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | George, Tammy |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 212 p. |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds