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About this book
This book describes how Guyanese Hindus recreate Indian ethnic identity in contemporary Guyana and examines how Hindu traditions have been transformed in this multi-religious and multi-ethnic society. By illustrating the exchange and consumption of clothing, the book demonstrates that the practices of wearing and gifting clothes materialize and visualize relationships. The significant outward migration of Guyanese to North America has resulted in substantial international gift exchange and transnational rituals. Applying the concept of translocality, this book demonstrates that different localities continue to influence transnational networks and socio-cultural practices. It provides a study of migration that emphasizes various aspects of material and visual closeness, conceptualizing the notion of touch.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“This book is a deeply insightful, well-researched, and thoughtful multi-sited ethnographical study of the ‘materiality’ of Indo-Guyanese cultural, diasporic and religious identity. Weaving together diverse first-person testimonials, participant observations and ethnographic interviews that are anchored in Guyana's complex history of migration, transnationality, race relations, social hierarchies, and cultural difference, Kloß embroiders a rich tapestry of ‘Indian Wear’ as a marker of Guyanese-Hindu traditions. A significant contribution to the field of Caribbean Studies and Material Culture Studies.” (Brinda J. Mehta, Germaine Thompson Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Mills College, USA)
“In this fascinating ethnographic study of a trans-local community in Guyana, Kloß shows how intimacy, touch, and exchange are established between Guyanese Hindus and the Indo-Guyanese diaspora through the sending and receiving of Indian style clothing. The transnational exchange of garments creates a kind of distant proximity through the material touching of bodies, textiles, and deities, while also distancing Guyanese Hindus from both ‘African’ Guyanese and from ‘Indian Indians’. This intimate perspective on women’s trans-local practices of religious community and familial fashioning brings to light exciting new ways of thinking about mobility, materiality, place-making, and embodied meanings and actions amongst dispersed migrants. It is an important contribution to the literature on transnationalism, material culture, modernity, and identity in the Caribbean.” (Mimi Sheller, Professor of Sociology and Director, Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, Drexel University, USA)
“This study is a fascinating journey into the complex management of ritual and everyday objects, senses and performance, as they shift across the various locally emplaced and transnationally spread channels of the Hindu diaspora between Guyana, New York, and South India. This is an eloquent document of theoretically and empirically solid and yet innovative ethnological research on the many layers of ‘Indian wear’.” (Christiane Brosius, Professor of Anthropology, Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, USA)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Sinah Theres Kloß is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne, Germany, and Research Fellow at the Center for Religion, Economy and Politics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. She is co-editor of Caribbean Food Cultures: Culinary Practices and Consumption in the Caribbean and Its Diasporas.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Fabrics of Indianness
Book Subtitle: The Exchange and Consumption of Clothing in Transnational Guyanese Hindu Communities
Authors: Sinah Theres Kloß
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56541-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-56540-2Published: 10 August 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-56541-9Published: 29 July 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 311
Number of Illustrations: 14 illustrations in colour
Topics: Migration, Ethnography, Cultural Studies