Asian Diaspora Research Articles

Treatment Optimisation for blood Pressure with Single-Pill combinations in INdia (TOPSPIN) – protocol design and baseline characteristics

BackgroundThe burden of over 300 million individuals living with hypertension in India is increasing steadily. Most current guidelines recommend initial combination therapy for effective blood pressure (BP) control. However, there is no randomised evidence to inform which combinations to use in South Asian population accounting for over one-quarter of the world’s population. MethodsThis multi-centre, single-blind, randomised, three-arm trial recruited men and women aged 30-79 years with hypertension. The trial compares the efficacy of commonly recommended single pill combinations (SPCs) of three drug classes – calcium channel blocker (amlodipine), ACE inhibitor (perindopril), and a thiazide-like diuretic (indapamide). The primary objective is to determine the most effective two-drug combination, initially at starting doses with forced up-titration at 2 months, in reducing 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (ASBP) at 6 months. The trial has 85% power to detect a difference of 3mmHg in 24-hour SBP amongst the groups.Participant recruitment took place from August 2022 to February 2024. Baseline resultsThe 1981 participants (42.0% women) enrolled had a mean age of 52.1(SD 11.3) years and a mean BMI of 26.5(SD 4.2) kg/m2. 58.1% and 18.6% of participants were known to have hypertension and diabetes, respectively. The mean ASBP was 135.6 (SD 17.0) mmHg, and the mean ambulatory diastolic blood pressure was 84.5 (SD 10.9) mmHg. ConclusionThe TOPSPIN trial is the first randomised evaluation of commonly used BP-lowering combination therapies in a South Asian population. The results have potentially significant implications for choosing first-line antihypertensive agents among Indians and South Asian diaspora.

A Systematic Review of the Effect of Gene-Lifestyle Interactions on Metabolic-Disease-Related Traits in South Asian Populations.

Recent data from the South Asian subregion have raised concern about the dramatic increase in the prevalence of metabolic diseases, which are influenced by genetic and lifestyle factors. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize the contemporary evidence for the effect of gene-lifestyle interactions on metabolic outcomes in this population. PubMed, Web of Science, and SCOPUS databases were searched up until March 2023 for observational and intervention studies investigating the interaction between genetic variants and lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity on obesity and type 2 diabetes traits. Of the 14 783 publications extracted, 15 were deemed eligible for inclusion in this study. Data extraction was carried out independently by 3 investigators. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Appraisal Tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS), the Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies-of Interventions (ROBINS-I), and the methodological quality score for nutrigenetics studies. Using a narrative synthesis approach, the findings were presented in textual and tabular format. Together, studies from India (n = 8), Pakistan (n = 3), Sri Lanka (n = 1), and the South Asian diaspora in Singapore and Canada (n = 3) reported 543 gene-lifestyle interactions, of which 132 (∼24%) were statistically significant. These results were related to the effects of the interaction of genetic factors with physical inactivity, poor sleep habits, smoking, and dietary intake of carbohydrates, protein, and fat on the risk of metabolic disease in this population. The findings of this systematic review provide evidence of gene-lifestyle interactions impacting metabolic traits within the South Asian population. However, the lack of replication and correction for multiple testing and the small sample size of the included studies may limit the conclusiveness of the evidence. Note, this paper is part of the Nutrition Reviews Special Collection on Precision Nutrition. PROSPERO registration No. CRD42023402408.

Introduction to the special issue: Asian diaspora theorizing: defying Racism~Re-imagining alternate Nows~Invigorating otherwise futures

ABSTRACT This is an introductory article to Part I of a special issue series entitled, “Asian Diaspora Theorizing: Defying Racism~Re-imagining Alternate Nows~Invigorating Otherwise Futures.” This special issue is a trilogy of our Asian diaspora studies project: Asian diasporas as theories, Asian diasporas as methodologies, and Asian diasporas as praxes. Part II of this special issue will appear in DIME 19(2) in 2025. This special issue features the cutting-edge work of Asian diaspora educational workers who engage in diaspora theorizing, where we rememorize our diaspora histories and critically examine ourselves, our works, and our lives to defy racism, re-imagine alternate nows, and invigorate otherwise futures.

Consuming and retailing fashion: South Asian diaspora negotiating clothing practices, identities and community making in Glasgow

ABSTRACT This article explores South Asian diasporic fashion retail spaces and sartorial practices in Glasgow. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic research, it investigates how fashion and clothing contribute to identity construction, community building, and cultural blending among British South Asians. Utilising patchwork ethnography and city walking, the article presents the lived experiences of shopkeepers and consumers, demonstrating the interplay of gender, migration, spaces, and religion in sartorial practices. The findings reveal that fashion and sartorial practices are not merely about personal expression but also about negotiating hybrid and multiple identities and fostering community solidarity amidst the challenges of migration and cultural preservation. The article also contributes to the broader discourse on transnational fashion, advocating for a decolonial perspective that addresses ethical, moral, and environmental sustainability within diverse fashion systems.

In search of “Asian perspectives” in the field of adult education: From Asian perspectives to deimperialization

AbstractWhat constitutes an “Asian perspective” in the field of adult education? Through a literature review of journal articles from 1990 to 2023 on adult education in the geographical category of Asia, I analyzed how these discussions connect to an Asian perspective. I identified five approaches through which Asian voices have been articulated in the literature: (1) distinct and shared cultural traditions, (2) ambiguities in Asian diaspora transitions, (3) local and/or historical practices applying the lens of Western or external theories, (4) local and/or historical experiences with a focus on practice, and (5) Indigenous/independent theorizing. In addition to a need to de‐reify theory by contextualizing processes of theorizing, I argue for deimperialization in the field of adult education—a need to interrogate imperial imaginaries that persist in education theorizing and practices across Asian regions and making the category of “Asians” fluid by historicizing relations of power such as colonialism, imperialism, and neoliberal capitalism.

A call to stop extractive health research on South Asian diaspora communities in Canada.

A call to stop extractive health research on South Asian diaspora communities in Canada.

Editorial adult and continuing education research and practice: Voices from Asians and Asian diasporas

Editorial adult and continuing education research and practice: Voices from Asians and Asian diasporas

Missing Ethnicity and Language Information in Healthcare Records of Patients from the Asian Diaspora.

The electronic health record (EHR) should contain information to support culturally responsive care and research; however, the widely used default "Asian" demographic variable in most US social systems (including EHRs) lacks information to describe the diverse experience within the Asian diaspora (e.g., ethnicities, languages). This has a downstream effect on research, identifying disparities, and addressing health equity. We were particularly interested in EHRs of autistic patients from the Asian diaspora, since the presence of a developmental diagnosis might call for culturally responsive care around understanding causes, treatments, and services to support good outcomes. The aim of this study is to determine the degree to which information about Asian ethnicity, languages, and culture is documented and accessible in the EHR, and whether it is differentially available for patients with or without autism. Using electronic and manual medical chart review, all autistic and "Asian" children (group 1; n = 52) were compared to a randomly selected comparison sample of non-autistic and "Asian" children (group 2; n = 50). Across both groups, manual chart review identified more specific approximations of racial/ethnic backgrounds in 54.5% of patients, 56% for languages spoken, and that interpretation service use was underestimated by 13 percentage points. Our preliminary results highlight that culturally responsive information was inconsistent, missing, or located in progress notes rather than a central location where it could be accessed by providers. Recommendations about the inclusion of Asian ethnicity and language data are provided to potentially enhance cultural responsiveness and support better outcomes for families with an autistic child.

Asian Diaspora: Understanding Toronto Public Spaces Through Art and Performances

In this article, I explore how art can help Asian immigrants in Ontario understand the public spaces and the community of Toronto. Using Shusterman’s Pragmatist Aesthetics as a theoretical framework, this study asks: How does navigating and responding to issues of equity, inclusion, and environmental resiliency foster residents’ understanding? The study is based on field research that involved a series of improvised art and performance activities in Toronto’s outdoor public spaces from February 2022 to May 2022. I argue that art can enable individuals to recognize and challenge the inequity in public places and develop relational understandings and practices that can inform public policy and inspire further research and action. The findings reveal that participants’ social interactions through artmaking in public spaces enhanced their personal growth, learning, and creativity, connecting their everyday lives with formal education. This article highlights the impact of diasporic experiences in shaping the process of placemaking within these spaces.

Introduction – Partition and the South Asian diaspora: exploring (inherited) memories and creative practices of remembering

ABSTRACT This short piece introduces the special issue ‘Partition and the South Asian diaspora: exploring (inherited) memories and creative practices of remembering’. This issue was conceived at the juncture of intersecting commemorations of key historical events – 1947 Partition of British India, 1971 Bangladesh independence and 1972 exodus from Uganda – in South Asia and its diasporas. By bringing together articles focused on practices of commemorating these events, we propose that studying entangled memories of Partition and its associated events in the diaspora provides a distinct perspective, both in terms of creative and cultural practices of remembering and in terms of the construction of diasporic identities and belongings.

The influence of Islam on Zulu Muslims in KwaZulu-Natal

This article explores the influence of Islam among the Zulu Muslims in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Although several studies focus on the history and experiences of the Asian diaspora or Asian Muslim community, there is a considerable lack of literature on the influence of Islam on the Zulu Muslims’ personal experiences beyond the conversion narratives. This study seeks to examine the impact of Islam on the cultural and religious identities of individuals who have converted to Islam within the Zulu community. This research article used qualitative research with a phenomenological approach conducted in several areas in KZN. The data for this study were acquired from literature, interviews and observations conducted among the Zulu Muslims in KZN. The data analysis technique employed in this work utilises a comprehensive approach, wherein all the acquired data are considered significant, and no reduction is applied.Contribution: The non-Muslim Zulus in KZN tend to stigmatise Zulu Muslim converts, perceiving them as having abandoned their cultural heritage. The Zulu Muslims who converted to Islam developed their own unique interpretation of the religion by blending Islamic principles with Zulu cultural elements. This allowed them to establish a sense of identity that they believe to be both authentically Zulu and free from colonial influences, in contrast to the Christianised Zulu population.

Yellow Techno-Peril: The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and anti-Chinese racial rhetoric in the US–China AI arms race

The rhetoric of an ‘AI arms race’ between the United States and China has become increasingly prominent over the past 5 years, despite warnings that it is unnecessarily polarising and undermines safe and ethical artificial intelligence (AI) development. However, existing critiques of the AI arms race narrative engage only sparingly with the racialised dimensions of this discourse. In this article, I draw on the rich theoretical insights of Asian American and Asian diaspora studies to show how the AI arms race narrative is deeply racialised in two key ways. First, I show how the rhetoric of an AI arms race builds upon the myth of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ between the West and the East. This civilisational rhetoric constitutes China and the United States as distinct and mutually opposed cultural entities, thus foreclosing the possibility of more peaceful and cooperative alternatives to the AI arms race. Second, I demonstrate how the US–China AI arms race specifically draws on previous racialised configurations of anti-Asian sentiment, such as techno-Orientalism and the Yellow Peril. I coin the term Yellow Techno-Peril to connote how older European and Americans fears of being overrun or controlled by China are reproduced in the AI arms race. I close by offering recommendations to key stakeholders such as policymakers, decisionmakers, journalists and media organisations as to how they can mitigate and avoid the racialised rhetoric of an AI arms race between the United States and China.

Twisted Trajectories and Jewish-Muslim Interfaces: Bukharan Jews of Central Asia in Vienna

This article discusses migration of Bukharan Jews – an ethnic-religious minority in (post-)Soviet Central Asia – and the establishment of multi-confessional, multi-ethnic Central Asian diaspora in the city of Vienna, Austria. During the Cold War period, Vienna was transformed from being a major transit hub for Soviet Jews moving from the USSR to Israel, USA and other destinations to a site of the most numerous and prominent Bukharan Jewish diaspora in Europe. Using the concept of ‘migration infrastructure’, the article investigates the ways in which this transformation took place. Furthermore, it focuses on Jewish-Muslim interfaces, both in Soviet Uzbekistan and present-day diaspora, to document the ongoing, albeit changing, coexistence and collaboration across ethnic-religious boundaries that facilitate transnational migration. I argue that the Jewish infrastructure, which emerged in Vienna’s historically Jewish district of Leopoldstadt in the last decades, has also become a migrant infrastructure for the post-Soviet Tadjik-speaking Muslim migrants from Central Asia.

‘Decolonising socio-political consciousness': second-generation LGBTQIA + South Asian experiences of finding the self and community in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT Second-generation LGBTQIA + South Asians in Aotearoa New Zealand remain overlooked in mainstream queer discourse, with their identities inaccurately amalgamated with the broader LGBTQIA + community. Despite significant differences influenced by historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts, this population's experiences are often ignored. In early 2022, we conducted a community consultation to uncover these unique experiences, yielding 43 narratives through semi-structured interviews. This paper explores the interconnection between the sense of self, community, and the formation of identities. The complex and non-linear nature of these processes is particularly evident for second-generation LGBTQIA + individuals in the South Asian diaspora. The pursuit of a secure and authentic identity becomes arduous and compromising due to societal norms. We show that the intricate shaping of identities through the multifaceted lens of relationality offers a particular kind of socio-political consciousness.

Second-generation South Asian [im]migrants: a new frontier of diaspora tourism

ABSTRACT Diaspora tourism refers to the travel and tourism activities of individuals or communities of a particular ethnicity or culture to their ancestral or historical destinations. The study of diaspora tourism remains a challenging endeavour, mainly due to the apparent inadequacy of previous studies. Diaspora tourism is often viewed as a form of ‘homecoming.’ I argue that tourism in the traditional sense is different from the tourism rganized by the second-generation diaspora because these generations do not simply go to their ancestor’s places to explore the connections. Hence, this research seeks to understand the lived experiences of second-generation immigrants better when they visit their ancestral lands and the influence of second-generation transnationalism on their experiences of diaspora tourism. This study will contribute to the literature on diaspora tourism by comparing first and second-generation immigrants and highlighting the differences in their tourism experiences in the South Asian diaspora.

“South Asians don't count as Asian”: Using Reddit to Explore Discussions of Anti‐Asian Racism within the South Asian Diaspora

In 2019, the COVID‐19 pandemic impacted people across the world like no other disease of its kind. The origins of the virus were identified to be from Wuhan, China, which led to East Asians becoming the targets of racist attacks and discrimination. “Other” Asian subgroups such as South Asians and Southeast Asians have also experienced hate crimes targeted toward them (CCNCTO, “Another Year: Anti‐Asian Racism Across Canada Two Years Into the COVID‐19 Pandemic.” 2022). Yet, their voices have largely been missing from conversations on anti‐Asian racism. Using thematic analysis, I explore how South Asians construct their positionality within conversations of anti‐Asian racism. I examine the use of terms such as “anti‐Asian,” “Asian racism,” “racism,” “hate crime,” and “discrimination” in 209 posts and 20, 388 comments between 2020 and 2022 within r/ABCDesis, a Reddit community formed by and for the South Asian diaspora, primarily residing in the United States, and Canada. Findings suggest that while most members have personally not been impacted by anti‐Asian racism, they are wary of being the next target. Redditors expressed the need for greater solidarity with East Asians and POC's, and yet demonstrate how ethnic ambiguity and complex intergroup relations can pose difficulties when expressing positionality within discussions of anti‐Asian racism.

Food City: Ahmedabad as a Globalised Vegetarian Space

Existing studies, highlighting that dining out forms an important part of public cultures in India, have focused on the growing influence of consumer cultures on India’s middle classes and their identity formation. However, insufficient scholarly attention has been paid to the distinctly different ways in which middle-class experiences with modernity and cosmopolitanism unfold across different cities in India and in the worldwide South Asian diaspora. This article argues that in the major Gujarati city of Ahmedabad, middle-class engagement with new and global culinary practices is couched within dominant, regionally coloured vegetarian cultures, redefining vegetarianism as integral to the project of modern middle-class identity among certain upwardly mobile social groups. This ethnographic study of popular pizzerias sheds light on the transformative capacity and significance of vegetarian food. From being a symbol of exclusionary bourgeois hegemonic cultures, it has turned into a consumer item regarded as accessible and desirable for supporting middle-class aspirations to experience ‘global’ forms of consumption. The concluding analysis suggests that, since there are many diverse, cosmopolitan urban spaces like Ahmedabad, more research is needed especially on how global Gujarati food culture has been developing.

Breaking Borders, Bridging Fields: Unveiling the Transculturality of Anti‐Asian Racism in a Global Context

Despite the recent surge in scholarly attention to anti‐Asian racism, what is largely missing in this growing body of literature is a bridge connecting studies on this subject to the broader field of race and ethnicity studies. In this special issue, we propose to use the concept of transculturality, which is defined as the process of cultural interaction, interpenetration, and hybridization that transcends the traditional borders of individual cultures, to establish this connection. In this introductory article, we first critically review the concepts of culture, interculturality, and multiculturality in the studies of race and ethnicity. Upon this review, we explain how transculturality advances the knowledge of racial and ethnic identity, ideas, and practices. This introduction concludes with an overview of each contribution, setting the stage for a comprehensive exploration of this complex and multifaceted issue. Collectively, this special issue aims to not only provide theoretical and empirical insights into the transculturality of anti‐Asian racism but also build a bridge between the studies of the Asian diaspora and the general research on race and ethnicity.

Disability, Space, and Racial Injustice: Life Writing at Angel Island Immigration Station, 1910–1940

Abstract This study integrates race and disability into a literary-historical analysis of the mostly anonymous poetry composed by Chinese migrants and inscribed onto the walls of the men's barracks of the US Immigration Station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, 1910–1940. Scholarship in Asian American and Asian diaspora studies has approached this body of work as a modern reinvention of traditional Chinese poetic forms within a US context. This study considers the men's barracks a protest space created under disabling conditions of confinement, and it demonstrates how Angel Island detainees critiqued the racialized and ableist systems of social control that operated at the station. The poets attest to undergoing invasive imperial regimes of bodily inspection and medicalized racial exclusion, and they document lived experiences of chronic illness, depression, and the anguished temporality of detention space. As corpus of disabled life writing by early Asian American and Asian diaspora writers, Angel Island poetry offers wider access to non-English historical vocabularies of disability as well as environmental and holistic understandings of embodied conditions beyond Western diagnostic models. As a built environmental archive and a National Historic Landmark, Angel Island is a significant cultural site for exploring how race and disability operate concurrently as social constructions.

Creative Lives: Interviews with Contemporary South Asian Diaspora Writers ed. by Chandani Lokugé and Chris Ringrose (review)

Creative Lives: Interviews with Contemporary South Asian Diaspora Writers ed. by Chandani Lokugé and Chris Ringrose (review)