Writing Diaspora: South Asian Women, Culture and Ethnicity

ISBN-13: 9780754641131 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 160 str.

Yasmin Hussain

Opis

Issues of cultural hybridity, diaspora and identity are central to debates on ethnicity and race and, over the past decade, have framed many theoretical debates in sociology, cultural studies and literary studies. However, these ideas are all too often considered at a purely theoretical level. In this book Yasmin Hussain uses these ideas to explore cultural production by British South Asian women including Monica Ali, Meera Syal and Gurinder Chadha. Hussain provides a sociological analysis of the contexts and experiences of the British South Asian community, discussing key concerns that emerge within the work of this new generation of women writers and which express more widespread debates within the community. In particular these authors address issues of individual and group identity and the ways in which these are affected by ethnicity and gender. Hussain argues that in exploring the different dimensions of their cultural heritage, the authors she surveys have created changes within the meaning of the diasporic identity, articulating a challenge to the notion of 'Asianness' as a homogenous and simple category. In her examination of the process through which a hybridized diasporic culture has come into being, she offers an important contribution to some of the key questions in recent sociological and cultural theory.

Recenzje

’...makes for interesting reading and has a lot to offer those interested in issues of diaspora, film and literature...well worth reading.’ Sociology

Spis treści

Contents: Introduction; Identity and gender across generations of British South Asians; Black British feminism and the birth of South Asian women’s writing; The new woman in South Asian and diasporic literature; Bhaji on the Beach and Bend It Like Beckham: Gurinder Chadha and the ’Desification’ of British cinema; Brick Lane: gender and migration; Childhood in Anita and Me; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

O autorze

Yasmin Hussain is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK.