Bobby Jindal
keywords: masculinity, america, identity, confused desi
interesting condom ad
keywords: transnationalism, sexuality, postcolonialism, nationalism
I wouldn't find Sepia Mutiny feminist, per se, or even politically consistent in a direction I could find affinity with. The point is that it keeps up with transnational desi issues with a specificity that is hard to come across in feminist blogs and women-of-color blogs--in the same way that my favorite fashion blog might do the same for my cable-knit sweater issues. The plight of having to "pick" apart a hybrid identity in order to find my place on the internet remains, yet the possibilities triggered by structural and spacial elements of web-based communities could be quite interesting, I think.
Perhaps in these "borderless" landscapes, identitarian borders do not disappear after all, and intersectionality as practice is just as hard--or even harder--within the political blogosphere. Usernames and IP addresses render us unfit to be "posthuman"--but certainly do their job to make brownness appear browner and less white, gayness appear gayer and less straight, and so forth. And of course, as my library co-worker reminded me, "it" or the locale for these "communities," still takes up space on a server somewhere, even if we can't see it.
But let's get back to material experience. Is it possible, that the hyperlink, as a structural and design tool with which the web functions for the user(person), allows for the possibility of materializing the pause, the moment of convergence, the "space between" that we so seek as a site for activism to emerge? I would like to propose the worlds of art, communications, and interactive design not as elements that aid in technology, but as the technology itself that facilitates those necessary moments between one sphere of identity practice and the next.
(No real sources, just blabbing, but definitely
Butler + Anzaldua + Gunn Allen + Haraway + MORE MORE MORE)
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8 comments:
Also, funny how on this post involving desi feminism breeds comments mostly about the word "feminist" and less about the vast history of postcolonial feminism.
But then again it's just my weird embitterment about people getting their desi feminism from Feministing.
And finally,
Sacred Media Cow blog
It's put together by grad students at University of London's SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies)
also might be of use for merging poco theory with pop culture.
dear fevilist,
your links lead to nowhere.
RE: fevilist, 11:02 AM
Not to say that debates around the word "feminist" have not had an enormous impacthad an impact on the divides and confluences between Western Feminists, Indian Feminists, and everyone in between.
Ania Loomba writes in "Tangled Histories: Indian Feminism and Anglo-American Feminist Criticism" (1993):
"A special problem here is the conflation of the positions or struggles of non-white women within the Western World which those of women of the so-called "third world"-- a problem that, it seems to me, is perhaps more acute in the United States than in Britain." (274)
I think it's a good point in the context of breaking down what The West entails. Obviously Western feminist scholarship done by "Indian-Americans" verses British nationals of Indian descent is contingent upon each country's historical relationship with India.
Dear Jexcesso,
Feministing has a brown editor:
www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003833.html
try again?
SOAS blog:
www.sacredmediacow.com
i'll have to check on why links don't work here..
"Is it possible, that the hyperlink, as a structural and design tool with which the web functions for the user(person), allows for the possibility of materializing the pause, the moment of convergence, the "space between" that we so seek as a site for activism to emerge? I would like to propose the worlds of art, communications, and interactive design not as elements that aid in technology, but as the technology itself that facilitates those necessary moments between one sphere of identity practice and the next."
I am very much in agreement, and I think Haraway would concur. These are liminal spaces that offer possibilities and spaces for transgressions in identity politics. While different, this is one of the reasons I am interested in the chapter in Queer Latinidad about "love" and "self" on the net.
I want to thank you both for your excellent efforts here the past few days!! Nicely done! A lot to think about.
Fevilist: Thanks for the Sacred Media Cow blog. On it there is a video by an anthropologist about YouTube as community. This got me to thinking about the earlier thread about Tila. Her MySpace numbers are incredible. We have analyzed her a couple of ways, but can she also be considered an icon of a community--a seemingly borderless community?
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