10 research outputs found
Indeterminate Liminality and the Refugee Journey: Partition and Hindu Sindhi Women’s Life Narratives
No full text(Book Review) Amrita Datta, Stories of the Indian Immigrant Communities in Germany: Why Move?
No full textBased on: Datta Amrita Stories of the Indian Immigrant Communities in Germany: Why Move? Zurich: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, 106 pp. (with index). ISBN 978-3-031-40146-6, $ 44.99 (hbk)
Book review: Farhana Ibrahim. 2021. From Family to Police Force: Security and Belonging on a South Asian Border
No full textDigitising the Diaspora Temple: Diasporic Affordances of Devotional Objects at a Hindu Sindhi Temple in Hong Kong
No full textThis article explores how diaspora ties are mediated by devotional objects at a Hindu Sindhi temple in Hong Kong. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this small temple moved its services online and reached the Hindu Sindhi diaspora in 33 countries. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews (in person and digital), this article finds that this successful digitisation was facilitated by a creative redeployment of everyday devotional objects—such as the new ‘flattened’ deities (two-dimensional cardboard idols acquired by the temple for digital broadcasts) and the diverse diasporic objects assembled into an offerings plate (‘presented’ both to the digital audience and the deity), which evoked the mobilities and connections of the dispersed Hindu Sindhi community. At a time when the diaspora’s everyday physical mobility was curtailed, the mobilities, material forms and potentials of these devotional objects—read here as ‘diasporic affordances’—demonstrate how the digital and material intersect to sustain diaspora ties
DIASPORA AND NODAL MOBILITIES: THE HINDU SINDHI COMMUNITY IN HONG KONG
No full textPh.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (FASS
Serving and Sustaining Diasporic Connectivities::Hindu Sindhi Women’s Seva in Hong Kong
No full textThis article highlights the role of Hindu Sindhi women in building and sustaining transnational diasporic connectivities through the discourse and practice of “seva” (loosely translated as “selfless service”). Scholars note how the heterodox and syncretic character of Hindu Sindhi religious and cultural identity stretches the contours of textualized Hinduism. However, an analysis of women’s seva demonstrates how Sindhis also deploy an explicitly Hindu identity to negotiate and perform belonging in the diaspora locale of Hong Kong. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Hong Kong, this article explores how women perform acts of seva (e.g., cooking, serving, and maintaining religious spaces) to sustain diaspora ties. Seva positions the community as performing “local civic virtue” and frames Sindhis’ perceived “ethnic difference” in Hong Kong by presenting a legible Hindu identity. Women are pivotal in sacralizing food offerings and facilitating the religio-spiritual meanings of seva in Hong Kong. During the pandemic, the religious connectivities and spaces of seva women maintained, created, shaped, and expanded global Sindhi diaspora ties. For these women, participating in seva becomes a means of personal spiritual growth, fostering social connections, and negotiating/performing gendered roles and expectations
In search of justice and care: how women survivors of violence navigate the Indian criminal justice system
No full textThe conversation around Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, a provision that addresses marital cruelty, is saturated with the discourse of ‘misuse’, and the belief that it is the province of ‘scheming wives’ making ‘false allegations’. However, not all cases filed under Section 498A reach the courtroom at all. Before cases go to trial, the police conduct an investigation, and may close the case if it is found to be ‘false’ or the result of a ‘misunderstanding’. This paper explores the trajectory of such cases through interviews with women and stakeholders, and analysis of police reports. It was found that women approach lawyers and the police when they are facing violence they are unable to tolerate, to leverage police intervention. Laywers direct them to Section 498A to leverage the pressure of arrest. Women agree to close the case once some degree of ‘compromise’ has been effected by the police. The number of these ‘false’ cases paradoxically feeds the discourse of misuse, and judicial reluctance to convict. Women continue to turn to the state for support in ending violence. There is thus an urgent need for a vastly improved network of social services and better connections between multiple women-centric laws.</jats:p
