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Title:
Powerful Cultural Productions: Identity
Politics in Diasporic Same-Sex South Asian Weddings
Where
& When: February 10, 2009
341 Eggers Hall
2 pm
Type
of Activity: Speaker
Speaking: Faris
Khan, Graduate Student in Anthropology, Syracuse University.
Summary:
Queer diasporic subjects are multiply displaced and often
excluded from familial, local, national, and transnational
spheres. This ethnographic study examines five same-sex
South Asian American wedding ceremonies to demonstrate that
these events are spaces where power and one’s inclusion into
the hegemonic structure of society may be negotiated. The
ritualized performances and social interactions surrounding
these ceremonies serve to enact, articulate and transform
culture. The ceremonies enable the actors to claim ownership
of tradition, and insert their subjectivities into one of
its most fundamental institutions. While the structures of
power operate most visibly on macro-political levels, they
are often replicated, resisted, and subverted in numerous
intimate arenas of lived experience, such as wedding
ceremonies.
Sponsorship:
The South Asia Center;
