Film policy and the emergence of the cross-cultural: exploring crossover cinema in Flanders (Belgium)

With several films taking on a cross-cultural character, a certain ‘crossover trend’ may be observed within the recent upswing of Flemish cinema (a subdivision of Belgian cinema). This trend is characterized by two major strands: first, migrant and diasporic filmmakers finally seem to be emerging, and second, several filmmakers tend to cross the globe to make their films, hereby minimizing links with Flemish indigenous culture. While paying special attention to the crucial role of film policy in this context, this contribution further investigates the crossover trend by focusing on Turquaze (2010, Kadir Balci) and Altiplano (2009, Peter Brosens & Jessica Woodworth)

Why She Did It: Battle for the Meaning of the Female Suicide Attackers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Suicide bombings are quickly becoming the tactic of choice for resistance groups around the globe, and increasingly, women are becoming the chosen perpetrators. However, the continued strength of gender roles and stereotypes has created resistance to these new roles. This project argues that narratives surrounding the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) female suicide attackers have been politically effective only when they do not depart significantly from traditional conceptions of women. Narratives that depict female suicide attackers in traditional gender roles are contrasted with those of typically masculine roles. Using narrative theory, two case studies are examined: the LTTE's first and last suspected female suicide attackers, Dhanu and Anoja. A deeper understanding of the manipulations of women's images will potentially help us understand the growing trend of female suicide attacks around the world

Sensitive Reading

What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? This volume provides opportunities to explore such questions by bringing together a whole set of new translations by David Shulman, noted scholar of South Asia. The translated selections come from a variety of Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary. The translations are accompanied by short essays written to help readers engage and enjoy them. Some of these essays provide background to enhance reading of the translation, whereas others model how to expand appreciation in comparative and broader ways. Together, the translations and the accompanying essays form an essential guide for people interested in literature and art from South Asia. “The scholarly interpretations and commentary in this volume represent some of the most prominent voices in the philological and historical study of South Asia—a galaxy of experts in literary analysis and other subfields of South Asian cultural history. This volume beautifully illuminates the generative possibilities of the intimate, context-sensitive mode of reading that David Shulman has engaged in for decades.” DAVESH SONEJI, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvani

Sensitive Reading

What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? This volume provides opportunities to explore such questions by bringing together a whole set of new translations by David Shulman, noted scholar of South Asia. The translated selections come from a variety of Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary. The translations are accompanied by short essays written to help readers engage and enjoy them. Some of these essays provide background to enhance reading of the translation, whereas others model how to expand appreciation in comparative and broader ways. Together, the translations and the accompanying essays form an essential guide for people interested in literature and art from South Asia. “The scholarly interpretations and commentary in this volume represent some of the most prominent voices in the philological and historical study of South Asia—a galaxy of experts in literary analysis and other subfields of South Asian cultural history. This volume beautifully illuminates the generative possibilities of the intimate, context-sensitive mode of reading that David Shulman has engaged in for decades.” DAVESH SONEJI, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvani

The experience of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the UK: migration and identity

Sri Lankan Tamil refugees (SLTRs) have lived in the UK in relatively large numbers for more than two decades. However, little is known about their experience of migration and adaptation. This study aims to address part of this gap and explore their lived experience, with special attention paid to their identity and acculturation. This thesis comprises three studies. Study 1 focuses directly on SLTRs who fled Sri Lanka due to the conflict. Study 2 explores the lived experience of their children, the so-called ‘second generation’. Study 3 offers a complementary perspective on adaptation from Sri Lankan Tamil migrants (SLTMs) who moved to the UK voluntarily before the conflict. To understand their experience, a qualitative methodology was adopted and – as the most suitable approach for this research – Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was selected. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and then analysed. Studies 1 – 3 had four, six, and two participants respectively. The unique contribution of this thesis is in elucidating the lived experience of conflict and migration of SLTR participants. SLTRs’ experience of conflict continues to shape – through the erosion of certain social identities – their experience of adaptation and meaning-making processes related to their current life. Moreover, the first generation’s experience indirectly affects the second-generation refugee participants. The meanings the second generation ascribe to their family stories contour their identities. Their heritage and host culture acculturation vary across different domains, with important implications for their daily lives. In contrast, the non-refugee participants of Study 3, being voluntary migrants, conceptualised their migration experience differently – which in turn contoured their adaptation rather differently. Due to methodological limitations, these findings need to be interpreted and potentially transferred with caution. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are discussed

Chai for change? Stories of Adivasi indigeneities, self-reliance, and activism

"Chai for change?" is a story about stories. More precisely, stories of Adivasi self-reliance, Adivasi indigeneities, and Adivasi activism. At the outset of this study of narratives of Adivasi indigeneity, I posit that the indigenisation of Adivasis fulfils different objectives in the field of Development practice and international “aid” processes. I argue that the Development activists I follow in this story achieve, or attempt to achieve, these objectives through the narrativisation of Adivasi indigeneity. I analyse how a particular group of Adivasi communities try to consolidate the sustainability and permanence of their, and other disadvantaged communities’, economic self- reliance. I also show how the Development activists engaged with these Adivasi communities connect the different actors involved in these self-reliance efforts via narratives of Adivasi indigeneity. I then argue that the activists manage to enlist the large group of different Development actors – and their financial support – necessary for a shift in economic relations, through the harnessing of a particular brand of Adivasi indigeneity in their stories. This conceptualisation of indigeneity corresponds largely with essentialised eco-romanticist imaginaries of “the indigenous”, and therefore “the Adivasi”, based on internationally current, reified notions of indigeneity. Through first identifying the dominant elements of these Adivasi indigeneity narratives, and then analysing the pitfalls inherent in them, I bring to light the inconsistencies between activist-imagined Adivasi indigeneity narratives, and the multiplicity of conflicting identities of Adivasi peoples in India today. "Chai for change?" concludes by investigating, on the one hand, whether the efforts of the Adivasi activists to create a more sustainable economic system, informed by Adivasi values, help sustain a progressive and self-reliant Adivasi movement. On the other hand, I explore whether the activists’ jumping on the indigenist rhetoric bandwagon, is in fact a useful strategy for Adivasis to overcome economic inequalities, (re)enforced and (re)produced by the complex intermeshing of ethnicity and caste in India. Specifically, I examine whether narrative-intensive indigenism is a useful strategy for dealing with Adivasi intersectionality – understood as the intersection of the multiple forms of discrimination Adivasis face. Or, whether indigenism’s anachronistic elements – in particular the activists’ adherence to an ecologically romantic conceptualisation of Adivasi values – possibly render the activists’ rhetorical strategies counterproductive, and thereby create obstacles to sustaining the momentum of their movement. "Chai for change?" is thus a narrative-focussed study of how conflictual notions of Adivasi indigeneity, harnessed for “development” ends by development activists, often become unravelled and entangled in tensions and contradictions, like a snarled-up ball of narrative yarn. I argue that the social activists try to offset this tendency by continually adapting the narrative of their stories, in an attempt to attract ever new and different audiences for their Adivasi economic revolution story

Peripheral Citizens: “colonial Christians,” Caste, and the Politics of Minoritization in Postcolonial Literature

My dissertation looks at the politics of minoritization of Christian communities in post-independent India. I use the term “colonial Christians” as a descriptive category to analyze the three Christian groups (Anglo-Indians or Eurasians, poor domiciled Europeans employed by the Raj, and lower-caste Christian converts) that were formed in the colonial period either by inter-racial mixing between the British and South-Asians or due to Christian missionary conversion. The communities are not united simply by the virtue of their faith. The internalized hierarchy based on class, gender, caste, skin color, European lineage, and access to the English language creates a crucial axis of minoritization for the underprivileged members of the group. Colonial policies and their legacies in the post-colonial nations, the internalized racism, classism, and sexism that defined colonial bureaucracy, and later, absorbed into the scaffolds of the Catholic and Protestant Churches in India provide a postcolonial lens to analyze the multiple processes of marginalization of colonial Christians in post-independent India. Overall, the dissertation is interested in exploring the duality of this group, being Indian and Christian, and how this hyphenation is played out in post-colonial literature published after India’s independence in 1947. The politics of minoritization serves as a theoretical framework to analyze how members of colonial Christian groups evaluate multiple histories and various determinants to contextualize their own marginalization. The contested relationship among Christian characters, the awareness of ambiguous colonial policies, and the resultant internal hierarchization based on race, ethnic origin, class, and skin color are explored in the postcolonial texts to show the various axes of minoritization of the fictional characters. This dissertation will look at different genres of literature: short stories, memoirs, post-1947 Raj novels, and Dalit writings to complicate the understanding of minoritization by exploring questions on citizenship, national belonging, dislocation, and marginalization that this heterogeneous minority group faces in independent India. To explore the complex orchestration of minority politics in postcolonial fiction, the dissertation will look at only three Christian groups (not the whole community) that have a complicated entry into the project of nation-building after India’s independence. Though there is rich scholarship on each of the three Christian groups focusing mostly on hybridity and marginalization, I believe the interconnectedness, as well as the tensions and contradictions among and between the groups, have not received enough attention, particularly in the discipline of literary criticism. This dissertation addresses the gap in scholarship to interrogate the narrative space of postcolonial fiction