Dis-Orienting Rhythms

Blurring the boundaries between academic and cultural production, this book produces a new understanding of the world significance of south Asian culture in multi-racial societies. One of the first sustained attempts to situate such production within the study of race and identity, it uncovers the crucial role that contemporary south Asian dance music has played in the formation of a new cultural politics. The book opens by positing new theoretical understandings of south Asian cultural representation that move beyond essentialist, outmoded and overdetermined accounts of ethnicity in the cultural studies literature. Contributors then go on to narrate the formation of south Asian expressive culture coming out of the highly charged context of UK black politics. Part three takes on the task of historical recovery, looking at the antecedents of political south Asian musical performance, autonomous anti-racist organizing and problems of alliance with the white left. The final part of the book engages with the movements and translations of cultural productions across the world - not just Britain or south Asia, but also Canada, North America, Fiji, Malasya, Australia, west Africa, Europe etc., but particularly in the fractured spaces of a postcolonial Britain in decline.