Archives in drag :  Performing <i>nachaniya</i> towards a queer theory of indenture

Persard, Suzanne C.

doi:10.13169/jofstudindentleg.2.1.0015

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Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies

Volume 2, Issue 1

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Archives in drag : Performing nachaniya towards a queer theory of indenture

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research-article

Author(s): Suzanne C. Persard

Publication date Pub: 08 July 2022

Journal: Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: nachaniya , Indo-Jamaican, queer archives, drag, folk performance

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Abstract

‘Archives in drag: Performing nachaniya towards a queer theory of indenture’ takes as its object the figure of the Indo-Jamaican nachaniya dancer as a paradigm for re-thinking queer theories of indenture. Nachaniya is a highly stylized Indo-Jamaican folk dance featuring a heterosexual male dancing in drag. The performance, which can be traced to the nineteenth century, is still common within present-day Indo-Jamaican communities and the diaspora. Nachaniya therefore presents both parts of a queer historical and living archive. By using an archival photograph from the 1960s of a nachaniya dancer as a point of entry, I consider the ways in which this genre of Indo-Jamaican folk performance demonstrates gender non-normativity as deeply embedded within the indentured archive. Since nachaniya is also read as not necessarily queer but ‘cultural’, I am interested in the tensions between a refusal to categorize the performance as a kind of drag while simultaneously elevating its ‘cultural’ status and the slippage between ‘queer’ and ‘culture’. I consider the figure of the nachaniya dancer as what Anjali Arondekar has termed a site of ‘ordinary surplus’ rather than a site of queer exception. Through a reading of this queer archival photograph, I consider destabilizing narratives of loss or absence that saturate approaches to the queer archive of indenture to suggest that nachaniya is a useful paradigm for theorizing the nexus at which Indo-Jamaican archives and queers of indenture have been theorized as ‘nothing to see’.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169/jofstudindentleg

Title: Journal of Indentureship and Its Legacies

Abbreviated Title: JIL

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Electronic): 2634-2006

Publication date Pub: 08 July 2022

Publication date Collection: 2022

Volume: 2

Issue: 1

Pages: 15-36

Article

DOI: 10.13169/jofstudindentleg.2.1.0015

SO-VID: b93caf04-7c3f-4008-b19b-57092a6f9ab8

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

Page count

Pages: 22

References

Anjali Arondekar. 2015. ‘In the Absence of Reliable Ghosts: Sexuality, Historiography, South Asia’, differences, 25(3), 98–122.
Anjali Arondekar. 2005. ‘Without a Trace: Sexuality and the Colonial Archive’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 14(1–2): 10–27.
Shainna Ali. 2010. ‘Contemporary Hijra Identity in Guyana: Colonial and Postcolonial Transformations in Hijra Identity’ (Bachelor’s Thesis, University of Central Florida, Orlando).
Frank Birbalsingh. 1989. ‘Jamaican Indians: A novelist’s view’, in F. Birbalsingh (ed.), Indenture and Exile: The Indo-Caribbean Experience (Toronto: TSAR), pp. 91–99.
Judith Butler. 1993. ‘Critically Queer’, GLQ, 1: 17–32.
Judith Butler. 2006. Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge).
Thomas Craven. 1900. The Royal Dictionary: In Two Parts, English and Hindustani and Hindustani and English (Lucknow: Methodist Publishing House).
Jacques DerridaEric Prenowitz. 1995. ‘A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics, 25: 9–63.
Jainendra Kumar Dost. 2017. ‘ Naach, Launda Naach or Bidesiya: Politics of (Re)Naming’, Performance Research, 22: 106–112.
Aniruddha DuttaRaina Roy. 2014. ‘Decolonizing Transgender: Some Reflections’, TSQ, 1(3): 320–337.
J.A. Ellapen 2020. ‘The Brown Photo Album: An Archive of Feminist Futurity’, Kronos, 46: 94–128.
Aliyah Khan. 2016. ‘Voyages across Indenture: From Ship Sister to Mannish Woman’, GLQ, 22(2): 249–280.
Rosamond King. 2014. Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida).
Peter Manuel. 2000. East Indian Music in the West Indies: Tan-Singing, Chutney, and the Making of Indo-Caribbean Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press).
Tejaswini Niranjana. 2006. Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration Between India and Trinidad (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
Kirk Meighoo. 1999. ‘Curry Goat as a Metaphor for the Indian/Jamaican Future’, Social and Economic Studies, 48: 43–59.
Vijay Mishra. 1996. ‘The Diasporic Imaginary: Theorizing the Indian Diaspora’, Textual Practice, 10: 421–447.
Patricia Mohammed. 2002. Gender Negotiations Among Indians in Trinidad: 1917–1947 (The Hague: Institute of Social Studies).
Jasbir Puar. 2001. ‘Global Circuits: Transnational Sexualities and Trinidad’, Signs, 26(4): 1039–1065.
Tina K. Ramnarine 1998. ‘Historical Representations, Performance Spaces, and Kinship Themes in Indian-Caribbean Popular Song Texts’, Asian Music, 30(1): 1–33.
Gayatri Reddy. 2005. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).
Vicky. Shandil 2018. ‘Re-viewing the Other: Locating Subversion in IndoFijian Cultural Performances’, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture, 18 September, <https://maifeminism.com/re-viewing-the-other-locating-subversion-in-indofijian-cultural-performances/> [accessed 21 May 2021].
Gayatri Spivak. 2010. ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in R. Morris (ed.), Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 21–78; 227–291.
Amar Wahab. 2019. ‘(Re)tracing Queerness: Archiving Indentureship’s “Coolie Homo/erotic”’, Visual Studies, 34: 388–394.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Anjali Arondekar. 2015. ‘In the Absence of Reliable Ghosts: Sexuality, Historiography, South Asia’, differences, 25(3), 98–122.

[2] Anjali Arondekar. 2005. ‘Without a Trace: Sexuality and the Colonial Archive’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 14(1–2): 10–27.

[3] Shainna Ali. 2010. ‘Contemporary Hijra Identity in Guyana: Colonial and Postcolonial Transformations in Hijra Identity’ (Bachelor’s Thesis, University of Central Florida, Orlando).

[4] Frank Birbalsingh. 1989. ‘Jamaican Indians: A novelist’s view’, in F. Birbalsingh (ed.), Indenture and Exile: The Indo-Caribbean Experience (Toronto: TSAR), pp. 91–99.

[5] Judith Butler. 1993. ‘Critically Queer’, GLQ, 1: 17–32.

[6] Judith Butler. 2006. Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge).

[7] Thomas Craven. 1900. The Royal Dictionary: In Two Parts, English and Hindustani and Hindustani and English (Lucknow: Methodist Publishing House).

[8] Jacques DerridaEric Prenowitz. 1995. ‘A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics, 25: 9–63.

[9] Jainendra Kumar Dost. 2017. ‘ Naach, Launda Naach or Bidesiya: Politics of (Re)Naming’, Performance Research, 22: 106–112.

[10] Aniruddha DuttaRaina Roy. 2014. ‘Decolonizing Transgender: Some Reflections’, TSQ, 1(3): 320–337.

[11] J.A. Ellapen 2020. ‘The Brown Photo Album: An Archive of Feminist Futurity’, Kronos, 46: 94–128.

[12] Aliyah Khan. 2016. ‘Voyages across Indenture: From Ship Sister to Mannish Woman’, GLQ, 22(2): 249–280.

[13] Rosamond King. 2014. Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida).

[14] Peter Manuel. 2000. East Indian Music in the West Indies: Tan-Singing, Chutney, and the Making of Indo-Caribbean Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press).

[15] Tejaswini Niranjana. 2006. Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration Between India and Trinidad (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

[16] Kirk Meighoo. 1999. ‘Curry Goat as a Metaphor for the Indian/Jamaican Future’, Social and Economic Studies, 48: 43–59.

[17] Vijay Mishra. 1996. ‘The Diasporic Imaginary: Theorizing the Indian Diaspora’, Textual Practice, 10: 421–447.

[18] Patricia Mohammed. 2002. Gender Negotiations Among Indians in Trinidad: 1917–1947 (The Hague: Institute of Social Studies).

[19] Jasbir Puar. 2001. ‘Global Circuits: Transnational Sexualities and Trinidad’, Signs, 26(4): 1039–1065.

[20] Tina K. Ramnarine 1998. ‘Historical Representations, Performance Spaces, and Kinship Themes in Indian-Caribbean Popular Song Texts’, Asian Music, 30(1): 1–33.

[21] Gayatri Reddy. 2005. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).

[22] Vicky. Shandil 2018. ‘Re-viewing the Other: Locating Subversion in IndoFijian Cultural Performances’, MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture, 18 September, <https://maifeminism.com/re-viewing-the-other-locating-subversion-in-indofijian-cultural-performances/> [accessed 21 May 2021].

[23] Gayatri Spivak. 2010. ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in R. Morris (ed.), Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 21–78; 227–291.

[24] Amar Wahab. 2019. ‘(Re)tracing Queerness: Archiving Indentureship’s “Coolie Homo/erotic”’, Visual Studies, 34: 388–394.