Of Silk Saris and Mini-Skirts: South Asian Girls Walk the Tightrope of Culture

By Amita Handa

Book Overview

Dr Handa explores issues surrounding the way identity is imagined and constructed by South Asian girls, women, and South Asian community workers in Toronto. The author also examines ways in which young South Asian women are constructed and represented through discourses of race, nation, culture, and community. Handa suggests that young South Asian women find themselves caught between these fragmented aspects of the self. Using feedback from her interviews, the author discusses South Asian women's struggle with the threat of the erosion of their authentic cultural practices. Handa's critical theoretical perspective illuminates how South Asian women struggle to live within the boundaries of cultural preservation at the same time that they embrace aspects of the communities in which they live. She explores whether they both desire and are excluded from Canadian cultural hegemony. She also examines the theoretical implications of exclusion and, conversely, the problematic of cultural preservation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0889614067
• ISBN13: 9780889614062
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Womens Pr
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Outstanding analysis and Context

This book critically addressed the idea of 'clash of cultures' as it relates to second generation South Asian immigrant girls in Canada. I truly appreciated the historical context the author provided. This is not simply a book about girls but about the ways in which mainstream society frames certain communities as 'backwards' and the ways in which identities are negotiated in this context. Bravo!