ABSTRACT
Film is the most popular and significant cultural form and commodity in the transnational South Asian cultural and political economy. More important, South Asian diasporic identificatory processes are centrally configured and contested through the cinematic apparatus. This project examines cinema primarily in relation to the contestations over meaning in relation to the political struggles of (dis) identification within transnational South Asian public spheres. In this case, I pay specific attention to the contestations over national claims (American, British, Canadian, and South Asian) and to the varying and shifting social differences (e.g., gender, religion, class) that inflect these claims. South Asian diasporic cinema is a
developing cinema that negotiates the dominant discourses, politics, and economies of multiple locations. This political and cultural economy affects the form, production, and circulation of the films. South Asian diasporic cinema negotiates and traffics among the two largest global cinemas-those of Hollywood and Bollywood-as well as individual national cinemas including British, Canadian, alternative U.S., and alternative Indian. Thus, South Asian diasporic films function significantly as part of the shifting economic, political, and cultural relations between global capitalism and the postcolonial nation-state, raising questions regarding the negotiation of cultural politics of diasporas located within local, national, and transnational processes.
