Feminist Relational Agency and the Cultural Contestation of Heteronormative Gender Norms in the Indian American Diaspora

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Through an analysis of essays published by the online magazine American Kahani, a publication that centers contemporary generations of the Indian American community, we argue that feminist relational agency allows Indian American community members to challenge dominant expressions of culturally specific heteronormative gender norms while simultaneously fulfilling their need to maintain an “authentic” sense of cultural identity. In doing so, cultural contestation emerges as a process internal to the community through which members seek to develop alternate forms of relationality while sustaining their connectedness to “Indian (American) culture.” This study contributes to scholarship about intersectional and transnational feminist agency and the Indian American diaspora by challenging the problematic application of western frameworks of agency that see non-western cultures as barriers for women of color to overcome and by specifically calling for studies that center complex and culturally specific conceptions of agency.