Reorienting the South Asian Female Body: The Practice of Virginity Testing and the Treatment of Migrant Women

2014 ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Evan Smith ◽  
Marinella Marmo
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
The South ◽  
Virginity Testing

Racialized authenticity: South Asian migrant women in the ethnic beauty market

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110275
Author(s):  
Hareem Khan
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Hair Removal ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
The South ◽  
Cotton Threads ◽  
A Site ◽  
Structural Mechanisms ◽  
Removal Technique

Over the last two decades, ethnic beauty markets in Los Angeles have grown rapidly as cultural commodification soars alongside the growth of migrant workers in the global city. The South Asian beauty industry, in particular, has emerged as a site where there is a hypervisibility of ethnic aesthetic practices, such as threading hair removal and henna art, as well as South Asian migrant women who are formally and informally employed in these salons. Threading, often marketed as an Indian, Asian, Ayurvedic and/or Eastern hair removal technique, uses intertwined cotton threads that are rolled across the skin to pluck hair out from the roots. This growing market for threading services has uniquely relied on the labor of migrant women from the subcontinent, one that has been sustained through efforts to authenticate women’s labor as desirably Other. Based on 22 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the South Asian beauty industry, this article examines the structural mechanisms through which migrant women are racialized as ‘authentic’ workers with a focus on businesses’ hiring practices resulting in the hypervisibility of migrant women in the industry, marketing and advertising of these services, as well as state legislation. I use the term ‘racialized authenticity’ to understand these structural productions and the ways they inform the context within which beauty industry interactions take place. These interactions occur in threading salons where racialized expectations around un/desirability are encountered by workers and consumers as well as in training programs where threading is taught. Together, these insights reveal the contradictory forms of South Asian racialization in the US that allow workers to authenticate their labor as desirable for consumers while simultaneously signaling their foreignness.

Labels, Histories, Politics: Indian/South Asian Dance on the Global Stage

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
AVANTHI MEDURI
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
First Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The South ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Indian Nation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Uk

In this paper, I discuss issues revolving around history, historiography, alterity, difference and otherness concealed in the doubled Indian/South Asian label used to describe Indian/South Asian dance genres in the UK. The paper traces the historical genealogy of the South Asian label to US, Indian and British contexts and describes how the South Asian enunciation fed into Indian nation-state historiography and politics in the 1950s. I conclude by describing how Akademi: South Asian Dance, a leading London based arts organisation, explored the ambivalence in the doubled Indian/South Asian label by renaming itself in 1997, and forging new local/global networks of communication and artistic exchange between Indian and British based dancers and choreographers at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Heritage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Shaikh ◽  
Stefano Bonino
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Online Video ◽  
The South ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
Video Footage ◽  
Community Heritage ◽  
Personal Accounts ◽  
The Way

The Colourful Heritage Project (CHP) is the first community heritage focused charitable initiative in Scotland aiming to preserve and to celebrate the contributions of early South Asian and Muslim migrants to Scotland. It has successfully collated a considerable number of oral stories to create an online video archive, providing first-hand accounts of the personal journeys and emotions of the arrival of the earliest generation of these migrants in Scotland and highlighting the inspiring lessons that can be learnt from them. The CHP’s aims are first to capture these stories, second to celebrate the community’s achievements, and third to inspire present and future South Asian, Muslim and Scottish generations. It is a community-led charitable project that has been actively documenting a collection of inspirational stories and personal accounts, uniquely told by the protagonists themselves, describing at first hand their stories and adventures. These range all the way from the time of partition itself to resettling in Pakistan, and then to their final accounts of arriving in Scotland. The video footage enables the public to see their facial expressions, feel their emotions and hear their voices, creating poignant memories of these great men and women, and helping to gain a better understanding of the South Asian and Muslim community’s earliest days in Scotland.

(Un)Settling Imagined Lands

2019 ◽  
pp. 174-208
Author(s):  
Kakali Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Asian Women ◽  
South Asian Women ◽  
The South ◽  
Global North ◽  
Research Praxis ◽  
Global Agenda ◽  
Academic Discourses

De/colonial methodologies and ontoepistemologies have gained popularity in the academic discourses emerging from Global North perspectives over the last decade. However, such perspectives often erase the broader global agenda of de/colonizing research, praxis, and activism that could be initiated and engaged with beyond the issue of land repatriation, as that is not the only agenda in de/colonial initiatives. In this chapter, I coin a framework, Par/Des(i), with six tenets, and offer three actionable methodological turns grounded in transnational de/colonial ontoepistemologies. I locate, situate, and trace the Par/Des(i) framework within the South Asian diasporic discourses and lived realities as evidenced from my empirical work with transnational South Asian women, my community, and my colleagues. Therefore, I offer possibilities of being, knowing, and enacting de/colonizing methodologies in our work, when engaging with the Par/Des(i) framework, with an invitation for an expanded conversation.

scholarly journals Taxonomic revision of the South Asian River dolphins ( Platanista ): Indus and Ganges River dolphins are separate species

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill T. Braulik ◽  
Frederick I. Archer ◽  
Uzma Khan ◽  
Mohammad Imran ◽  
Ravindra K. Sinha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Taxonomic Revision ◽  
Ganges River ◽  
The South ◽  
Separate Species
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