Critiquing cultural appropriation, building community: desi online activism on Tumblr shame blogs and #reclaimthebindi

ABSTRACT

Indo Chic describes a western fashion trend that extracts elements of South Asian fashion and accessories, including the bindi, tikka and henna, and styles them alongside Western fashion items. Indo Chic became popular again in 2013, and those who wore the style faced accusations of ‘cultural appropriation’ by communities of South Asian diasporic (desi) people. This article interrogates the contemporary iteration of Indo Chic, examining how the trend is represented, consumed, and subsequently critiqued in online spaces by desis. Through a critical discourse analysis of two online spheres of culture, Tumblr ‘shame blogs’ (youarenotdesi.tumblr.com and basicswearingbindis.tumblr.com) and the multiplatform hashtag #reclaimthebindi, this article argues that Indo Chic is an incendiary phenomenon that motivated global networks of desi people to engage in online activism and in doing so, build community and seek social change.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• South Asian women
• desi
• social media
• online activism
• cultural appropriation
• tumblr

Acknowledgments

I’d like to acknowledge Dr Jane Chi Hyun Park for her academic and astrological support, wisdom, patience and kindness. I would also like to acknowledge the staff and postgraduate community of the Gender and Cultural studies department at the University of Sydney. Their comradery, especially those who I have had the pleasure to work and teach alongside with, has been so helpful. Finally thank you to my parents and to all the desi women who contributed to the activist moments featured in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See Maira (2000) for a critical commentary on the exoticisation of the bindi.

2. Eschmann et al. extend this definition, adding that microaggressions can include ‘behaviours, speech, or environmental characteristics that are driven by stereotypes and indicate to Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) that they are second-class citizens’ (Eschmann et al. 2020, 1).

3. Francesca Sobande (2019) describes ‘woke’ culture as ‘including reference to acts of resistance and solidarity in response to systemic racism, capitalism and structural oppression’ (Sobande 2019, 7). The term has documented roots in African-American Vernacular English but has since been taken up widely outside African-American communities.

4. ‘Asian Chic’ is Jones and Leshkowich’s term to describe the mainstream 1990ʹs women’s fashion trend that incorporated styles such as sarong skirts, Ganesh-print T-shirts, bindis, Chinese calligraphy printed shirts, cheongsam style silk shirts, and kimonos.

5. Tumblr experienced a significant dip in its usership in 2018 when, in a step of increasing commercialization, the site banned pornographic content from being posted on its microblogs.

6. Clark references ‘our black mothers and grandmothers’, ‘minors deprived of a sense of agency’ and ‘queer folk’ as practitioners of reading whose ‘urgency and weight of oppression require us to immediately cry out’ (Clark 2020, 80).

7. Riera describes hashtags as: ‘bits of metadata that users add to their posts so that they may be seen (or not seen) by other users looking at that tag. Tags are also often used as a less conspicuous way to add commentary to a post’ (Riera 2015, 40).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauren Nilsson

Lauren Nilsson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney. Her research tracks and interrogates the many manifestations of the aesthetic tradition ‘Indo Chic’, analysing how South Asian diasporic (desi) communities in the West interact with the trend, in particular how the trend has led desi women to engage in political activism online. Her impending thesis is situated within critical race studies, cyber studies, diaspora studies and mixed-race studies, which informs her work in the department.