Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/national Projects (Comparative Feminist Studies) [Paperback]

Suparna Bhaskaran (Author)

Book Description

Series: Comparative Feminist Studies | Publication Date: November 11, 2004

Made In India explores the making of "queer" and "heterosexual" consciousness and identities in light of economic privatization, global condom enterprises, sexuality-focused NGOs, the Bollywood-ization of beauty contests, and trans/national activism. In examining seemingly disparate and high profile events in post/neo colonial India, since the 1990s, Made In India demonstrates the relationships between identity formation and the political economy of trans/national sexualities. These events demonstrate the material, political, and cultural contexts within which postcolonial subjects negotiate their lived experiences within moments of decolonization and recolonization. Bhaskaran's unique analysis makes Made in India an important addition to postcolonial studies, gender studies, and diaspora studies courses.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Made in India is a provocative and important contribution to queer diaspora and area studies. Working from the ever-globalizing present, Suparna Bhaskaran shows how Made in India is at once the result of commodity production in the liberal(ized) economy and of Indian nationalism's increasingly phantasmatic attempts to reinforce its sexual, racial and class boundaries in the postcolonial world."--Kamala Visweswaran, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin

"Compellingly Innovative. Highly readable. Suparna Bhaskaran has gifted a most skillfully imagined ethnography. She has taken the word queer through a transnational journey that is at once intimate and political, and, in so doing, she has fashioned a new and expansive vocabulary about the formation of sexual subjectivities in neocolonial India. This is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the radical transformation of what it means to be queer."--M. Jacqui Alexander, author of forthcoming Pedagogies of Crossing

About the Author

Suparna Bhaskaran is Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (November 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403967261
• ISBN-13: 978-1403967268
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good concepts, but too hodgepodge, April 13, 2005

By 

Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/national Projects (Comparative Feminist Studies) (Paperback)

The cover shows one-half of two different faces. One half-face is obviously that of a gender-typical Indian man. The other is a person made up in Indian makeup and accessories, but one doesn't know if it's a woman, a hijra, or a guy doing drag. I think the point is that gendered and sexual identities are in flux on the subcontinent.

Unfortunately, that's about as far as I can go in terms of saying positive things about this book. I think this may be an example of too many cooks spoiling the soup. Suparna B. is trained in anthropology but her heart lies in cultural criticism. I am not quite sure if the two disciplines can complement each other. This book breaks down into an anthropology chapter, a gender chapter, a gay male chapter, and a lesbian chapter. I think separately these chapters will be helpful to students and activists. Surprisingly, there is no conclusory chapter here; maybe she wanted to cut the fat and stick to the meat. Still, this text is a miss and not a hit.

This book is all over the place. In the anthropology chapter, she condemns "Lone Ranger" anthropology where outsiders come in rough shod and act as if they are the be-all-to-end-all, but she also critiques anthropologists that identify with their subjects and try to "empower" them. She does not do a good job in explaining what a third path or synthesis should be. The lesbian chapter is scant. It reminds me of Paula Gunn Allen's scant lesbian chapter in "Sacred Hoop" which (homophobe?) Ward Churchill critiqued.

Yes, the author is bright and will probably do well in academia. Still, much of this book could be written by anybody who can interview Indian activists and has access to research libraries. The author goes on and on about how Indians are pushed to study India, rather than other regions, and anthropology graduate students are encouraged to live somewhere for two years and just write about it. Here, the author does not really prove that she spent years talking to real people. She mentions frequently "virtuality" and I think someone could have written this book entirely over the Internet. She does a ton of summarizing facts or newspaper articles. This is needed since readers probably don't have the facts, but it still eats pages and reduces the amount of time that she can focus on analysis. I wonder if many dissertations-turned-books are all over the place like this. Hopefully, Suparna B. will concentrate more when she writes as she advances in her career.

What is great is how she positions homosexuality on the subcontinent. She is very mindful in explaining how economics and the Indian superstructure affect gay male, lesbian, and transgendered identities. Many gay male and lesbian activists of color have lamented how homophobes will label same-sex love "a white disease." Here, the author states that some Indian bigots may assert that, but she also states that some Indians say they do what they feel at the moment and thus gay identity, not gay sex, is the Western phenomenon. This book does promote social constructionism in ways that most gay and lesbian studies experts would applaud.

Like all progressives, I want more works that don't treat identities in isolation. I want sharp thinkers to juggles issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. However, this book has good intentions that fail. I was expecting to love this book and I did not.