Abstract:

Abstract Bollywood films are a unique visual repository of India’s public imaginings, and they can, therefore, serve as guides to how India sees its past, present, and aspirational future (Dwyer, 2010). Through close intertextual readings of three key popular films depicting British Indian youth, this article explores the ways in which the UK-born/raised second-generation Indian diaspora has come to be represented within Bollywood. We argue that inter-generational negotiations around long-distance nationalism, social reproduction, and marriage are pivotal to the articulation and regulation of diasporic youth subjectivities in Bollywood films. By foregrounding the interplay of gender, sexuality, and nation, our analysis illuminates the role of Bollywood in mediating a transnational Indian identity which is tethered simultaneously to economic neoliberalism and social conservatism. Author Biographies Utsa Mukherjee, University of Southampton Postdoctoral Fellow (ESRC), Department of Sociology, Social Policy, and Criminology Anil Pradhan, Jadavpur University, Kolkata PhD Candidate and Junior Research Fellow (UGC-NET), Department of English Ravinder Barn, Royal Holloway, University of London Professor, Department of Law and Criminology References Anwar, Muhammad. Between Cultures: Continuity and Change in the Lives of Young Asians. London: Routledge, 1998.

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