Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India

Mani, Lata

doi:10.2307/1354153

Cited by 317 publications

(190 citation statements)

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“…Importantly, it is left to Jess' white coach Joe (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to rescue her from her tradition-bound family by pleading that she be allowed to play football. This too is a colonialist narrative, as the British persistently positioned themselves as defenders of Indian women against the ostensible tyranny of Indian culture (Mani, 1998). Thus, while we might acknowledge that many middle-class immigrant kids and youth are put in the difficult position of having to negotiate a somewhat divergent cultural terrain, in order to demystify the mythical depiction of the Bhamra family, it is necessary to understand that historically English culture was instrumental in the production of racial inequality and also that English society today is far from as welcoming of non-white people.…”

Section: Film Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiculturalism, Gender and Bend it Like Beckham

Abdel-Shehid

Kalman-Lamb

2015

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In this article, we explore the efficacy of sport as an instrument for social inclusion through an analysis of the film Bend it Like Beckham. The film argues for the potential of sport to foster a more inclusive society in terms of multiculturalism and gender equity by showing how a hybrid culture can be forged through the microcosm of an English young women's football club, while simultaneously challenging assumptions about traditional masculinities and femininities. Yet, despite appearances, Bend it Like Beckham does little to challenge the structure of English society. Ultimately, the version of multiculturalism offered by the film is one of assimilation to a utopian English norm. This conception appears progressive in its availability to all Britons regardless of ethnicity, but falls short of conceptions of hybrid identity that do not privilege one hegemonic culture over others. Likewise, although the film presents a feminist veneer, underneath lurks a troubling reassertion of the value of chastity, masculinity, and patriarchy. Bend it Like Beckham thus provides an instructive case study for the potential of sport as a site of social inclusion because it reveals how seductive it is to imagine that structural inequalities can be overcome through involvement in teams.

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Section: Film Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiculturalism, Gender and Bend it Like Beckham

Abdel-Shehid

Kalman-Lamb

2015

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“…It is the 4 The demand that the subaltern must be represented as having a 'voice' works to privilege a masculine form of heroic rebellion (O'Hanlon, 1988:214-5). This is evident from ongoing feminist discussions of the significance of discourses about widow immolation in colonial India, discourses in which the widow serves as the site upon which debates about the status of tradition and modernity are staged (Mani, 1987). This has become the exemplary model of the epistemic violence of imperialism.…”

Section: Discerning Subalternitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“Sing along with the Common People”: Politics, Postcolonialism, and other Figures

Barnett

1997

Environ Plan D

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Recent interest amongst critical human geographers in postcolonial theory has been framed by a concern for the relationship between ‘polities’ and ‘theory’. In this paper I address debates in the field of colonial discourse analysis in order to explore the connections between particular conceptions of language and particular models of politics to which oppositional academics consider themselves responsible, The rhetorical representation of empowerment and disempowerment through figures of ‘speech’ and ‘silence’, respectively, is critically examined in order to expose the limits of this representation of power relations. Through a reading of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's account of the dilemmas of subaltern representation, contrasted to that of Benita Parry, and staged via an account of their different interpretations of the exemplary postcolonial fictions of J M Coetzee, it is argued that the deconstruction of the conventional metaphories of speech and silence calls into view the irreducible textuality of the work of representation. This implies that questions about institutional positionality and academic authority be kept squarely in sight when discussing the problems of representing the struggles and agency of marginalised social groups. It is suggested that the continuing suspicion of literary and cultural theory amongst social scientists for being insufficiently ‘materialist’ and/or ‘political’ may serve to reproduce certain forms of institutionally sanctioned disciplinary authority.

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“…The following section reflects on the experience of presenting my work (Mani, 1987) to groups in the US, Britain and India and discovering that the audiences in these places seized on entirely different aspects of my work as politically significant. These responses in tum have caused me to reflect on how moving between different 'configurations of meaning and power' can prompt different 'modes of knowing'.…”

Section: The Emergence Of a Politics Of Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Taking the instance of sati, whose abolition by the British in 1829 supposedly illuminates, par excellence, the legitimacy of this account, I have tried to suggest that the story is much more complicated. Among other things, I point out that legislative prohibition of sati was preceded by its legalization, a procedure that involved British officials in determining and enforcing a colonial version of the practice deemed traditional and authentic; that intervention in sati provided grounds for intervention in civil society; and that a fundamental ambivalence to sati structured colonial attitudes to the practice (Mani, 1987). I argue that missionary involvement in sati was similarly complex and ambivalent, with horror being reserved primarily for fundraising material produced for a British public.…”

Section: Priorities Redetermined: the Aftermath Of Roop Kanwar's Burningmentioning

confidence: 99%