Dissertation
Racial Indianization: An analysis of civic discourses of racism denial
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
08/2009
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006001
Abstract
This dissertation seeks to understand the civic discourses of racism denial that represent the views of the government officials, Dalits, academicians in the mainstream media, and how the logics of the discourses might potentially re-constitute or re-define the Indian nation. Specifically, this project aims to understand the changing dynamics of the constitution of the Indian nation vis- -vis the internal Other through the discourses about race, caste and racism denial in the civic mainstream domain. This project identified two discourses of denial of race and racism in the media representation of the government officials, Dalits, and academicians responses to the Dalit accusation that casteism is racism. The dominant discourse Caste is Not Race denied racism directly. The other discourse, Caste is Race only apparently supported the charge that casteism is racism, albeit with deep ambivalence, and circumvented the racism charge and shifted the focus to broader caste issues. Based on the analyses, I argue that the two discourses of denial and apparent support of the Dalits interacted with each other in the same discursive domain, and reworked, reconstituted and reified the extant cultural logics of race, caste and nation to deny racism in the postcolonial Indian context.
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Details
- Title
- Racial Indianization
- Creators
- Purba Das
- Contributors
- Jolanta A. Drzewiecka (Chair)Susan D Ross (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of EnglishJoan Burbick (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of English
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 299
- Identifiers
- 99901055023601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation