Organizer: Kathryn Hansen, National Endowment for the Humanities
Chair: Carla Petievich, Montclair State University
Discussant: Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida
Peter Manuel, City University of New York
In Trinidad and Guyana, which are home to over 800,000 people of East Indian descent, Indo Caribbean communities are in a period of transition, marked by increased participation in the socioeconomic mainstream and a heightened sense of cultural self awareness. Indo Caribbeans are in the process of formulating their own conception of social identity vis-à-vis the traditionally more dominant Afro Caribbean sectors, and are demanding greater representation in public culture in the context of a multiracial society. With the relative decline of institutional Hinduism and Islam in Trinidad and Guyana, music has emerged as perhaps the most prominent symbol of Indian identity. Consequently, much discussion of the role and nature of Indo Caribbean culture in mainstream society has taken the form of controversies pertaining to music, which have been argued extensively in newspapers and other public forums. Such polemics have included debates over the state funding of the steel drum vs. the harmonium, the amount of broadcast media time devoted to Indian programming, the participation of Indians in calypso and Carnival, and other issues. This paper examines a few of these polemics in relation to larger themes of cultural policy and socio political identity.
Kathryn Hansen, National Endowment for the Humanities
South Asian dance performances, as of the "classical" style Bharata Natyam or the folk based Bhangra, figure prominently in the system of transplanted artistic traditions that bind diaspora communities together. The semiotic complexities of dance, including its associations to the body, gender, and the nation, make it a powerful implement with which to fashion individual and collective identities. Additionally, the religious and philosophical underpinnings of several South Asian forms add to their instructional value, particularly for second and third generation students. The boom in dance instruction among South Asian youth (especially girls), the increasingly extravagant celebration of dance debuts and recitals (ranga pravesha, arangetram), the ubiquity of dance presentations at community functions, the multiplicity of forms, the proliferation of professionals-all point to the significance of dance as an expression of identity, whether labeled "Indian," "Asian Indian," "Indo Canadian," "South Asian," "Punjabi," etc. (An important exception is found among those South Asian Muslims who object to dance as a representational art, to music and dance as leading to sensual indulgence, and to any form of the public display of women.)
Beyond these general observations, this paper explores the different trajectories that South Asian dance has taken in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., partly as a result of immigration policies and the resulting demographic characteristics of the South Asian population, and partly in consequence of different cultural politics and funding structures. I argue that in the U.S., where South Asians constitute the smallest percentage of the population of the three countries considered but are the most affluent, and where state funding for the arts (especially the "traditional" and "ethnic" arts) is minuscule, dance has been heavily supported by Indian individuals and community groups, especially the newly emerging Hindu temple organizations, and has remained conservative in concept, encased in religious ideology, and detached from the arts mainstream. The U.K. presents almost an opposite picture, with South Asians constituting a prominent albeit somewhat disprivileged minority and Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Indian Muslims heavily represented within it. South Asian dance activities are subsidized through the national and regional arts councils, and programmatic requirements to "innovate" have pushed the classical traditions in a secular direction and brought about combinations with trends in modern dance. Among the young, Bhangra has emerged as a popular hybrid form, combining Punjabi roots with Afro Caribbean influences, and occupying new spaces such as dance clubs and outdoor melas. Canada with its official policy of multiculturalism offers an intermediate position on the spectrum, manifesting traces of both American and British trends.
Verne A. Dusenbery, Hamline University
This paper explores the intersection of nationalist and multiculturalist discourses in the contemporary world. It contrasts the experiences of Canadian Sikhs and Singaporean Sikhs to suggest ways in which the nationalist and multiculturalist projects of the two pluralistic nation states (Canada and Singapore) have affected local political fortunes of one small but visible ethnocultural group (the Sikhs) with its own "collective will to exist". The analysis attributes Sikh political marginalization in Canada and Sikh political successes in Singapore, in part, to differences in state ideologies, policies, and practices of nation-building and ethnic management in corporatist Singapore and quasi corporatist Canada. The analysis highlights the challenges and costs of playing the "politics of identity" at the intersection of pluralist polities and global ethnoscapes and suggests how ethnographers might fruitfully engage the poetics and politics of sameness and difference.
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