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Nirmal Puwar and Parvati Raghuram (editors); Berg, Oxford and New York, 2003,; ISBN 1 85973 602 5
Work on women of South Asian origin in diasporic communities is a vital and growing area of research for the important challenge it poses to both feminist scholarship and diaspora studies, and the edited volume, South Asian Women in the Diaspora, is an excellent example of this contribution. Nirmal Puwar and Parvati Raghuram's collection of 13 essays span a range of disciplinary approaches and topical issues that make it clear that South Asian diasporic feminisms open up questions for several fields, including area studies, cultural studies, critical ethnography, and work on production and consumption. There are some interesting contradictions and gaps in the book as well, which are revealing and as useful to consider as the provocations and insights the collection offers.
The theme of consumption and commodification of South Asian culture and representations of South Asian women is a focal point in three of the book's chapters, and touched on in others as well, highlighting the importance of questions of consumption and production to studies of South Asian diasporic culture. The essays by Bakirathi Mani and Parvati Raghuram address the politics of style for South Asian women, using well-worn examples such as the film Mississipi Masala, as well as fresher discussions of cross-dressing South Asians and biographic accounts of South Asian women fashion entrepeneurs. All three essays offer their own theoretical perspectives on the linkages between production and consumption, attempting to integrate...