Women in refugee camps: reel representation of marginality in the extremes

ABSTRACT

Popular Hindi cinema in India has come a long way in portraying women. From the 1910s, when male actors used to play heroine characters, to the 1950s, when female actors started playing lead roles, women’s depiction has undergone various forms of experimentation. One such aspect constantly discussed in cinema, literature, and other art forms are their depiction of the extremes and their take on the marginalities. This paper attempts to analyse the representation of women in refugee camps in popular Hindi cinema. There are works available focussing on the depiction of women in cinema content-wise. However, the cinematographic portrayal explicitly referring to refugee camps is not widely explored. This paper attempts to fill these existing gaps. It also discusses the current political landscape of India vis-à-vis popular Hindi cinema. The cinematographic representation of women exemplifies their nurturing and caring nature. The screen time shrinks when the focus shifts to their inner conflicts and emotions.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee camps
• partition
• popular hindi cinema
• women
• Kashmir exodus
• migration cinema
• transnational cinema

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Accented cinema is defined as an “outgrowth of displaced, deterritorialized exiles living in a diaspora that will never truly be home” (Gordon 2002). An idea similar to the concept of “non-place,” explained above, by Marc Auge.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pooja Chatterjee

Pooja Chatterjee is a full-time Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Previously she has worked as a journalist and an Assistant Professor in a reputed private university. She has research interests in gender and media and development communication.

Sushila Shekhawat

Sushila Shekhawat is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. With twenty years of academic experience, she has published several research papers in national and international journals. Her expertise lies in Film and Media studies, Indigenous filmmaking, Feminism, etc.

Sangeeta Sharma

Sangeeta Sharma is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Her areas of interest include advertising, technical communication, creative thinking, and linguistics. She was associated with the Centre for Women Studies (CWS) as Coordinator.