Diaspora, gender, and power
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We explore the many facets of masculinity, not only as a notion associated with men but also as a collection of identities, performances, and expectations that interact with diaspora, race, class, and religion. Drawing from feminist and queer theories, we examine the construction, fragmentation, and contestation of masculinities, particularly in relation to Punjabi identity.
The article The Turban Is Not a Hat by Jasbir Puar asks us to think about the ways in which the turban is an object of gendered and racial connotations. The turban has profound spiritual and cultural meaning for Sikh men. However, since 9/11, it has been racialized as a sign of terrorism, making the turbaned figure both suspicious and very conspicuous, and undermining the coherence of Sikh identity. Acts of deturbaning, whether by physical force or institutional orders, demonstrate how the turban is viewed as an extension of the body rather than merely an object. By presenting Sikh males as both hypermasculine and effeminate—a contradiction that challenges conventional gender categories—Puar's idea of the "monster-terrorist-fag" demonstrates the intersection of racial and sexual fears.
Puar also looks at how LGBTQ+ topics are appropriated into nationalist ideologies, frequently at the expense of racialized communities, in her examination of homonationalism. With their ethnic and cultural identities still making them suspect, LGBT South Asians in the United States had to balance the dual forces of Islamophobia and queer exceptionalism after 9/11. Their queerness might validate their Americanness. Puar, for instance, emphasizes how the turbaned gay body embodies both "threat" and "backwardness," complicating the liberal queer subject.ù
Our knowledge of masculinity in the diaspora is further enhanced by Stanley Thangaraj on South Asian basketball players. He presents the idea of "Cultural Blackness," looking at how Blackness and distance from it influence South Asian masculinities. For example, Desi basketball players navigate the expectations of model minority status while interacting with Black culture as a means of performing masculinity. The tensions that South Asian men face in navigating identity, community, and belonging are reflected in this dualism.