ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possibility of using personal biographies along with product biographies at the multiple points that they intersect, including design, production and consumption, in order to challenge the product-centricity of much analysis of production/consumption. It outlines the problematic relationship between economy and culture may be surmised from the discussions of production and consumption. Existing paradigms for understanding cultures and economies both provide limited understandings of the economic agency of South Asian women. ‘Multi-locale’ dispersions have been particularly central in the case of the South Asian diaspora. The increasing social stratification within British society is also reflected within the Asians. Theoretical frameworks that cast South Asian women as ‘traditional’ in the binary division between tradition and modernity will also by extension see them as purchasing goods that are ‘traditional’, as well as based primarily on their racialized identity.
