Meaning Of Coolie Bai
Abstract
In the Anglophone Caribbean, nationalist discourses of sexual citizenship are inextricably linked to the afterlife of colonialism and its far-reaching and affective legacies, resonances, and continuities as it reinscribes alterity on the bodies of sexual and gendered “others.” Focusing our optics on the Indo-Caribbean, I explore how archives of chutney music offer disruptive methods, strategies, and praxes of transgression that trouble discourses of “normative” Creole (Afro-Caribbean) and heteronormative nationalisms as “authentic” ideologies of Indo- Caribbean gendering — notably, masculinity. Drawing upon historical genealogies of sexual-sacred erotics found within the Hindu, women-exclusive, pre-wedding Indo-Caribbean tradition of matikor, I interrogate how men artists in chutney music spaces perform what I conceptualize as “qoolie subjectivities,” or distinct embodied languages of self that operate through what I argue are long-standing entanglements of Indo-Caribbeanness and queerness that, when excavated via the body , cultivate critical forms of Indo-Caribbean knowing and living.
In this essay, I specifically focus on acts of remaking the pejorative term “coolie” from a grammar of harm to one of reclamation, and agentive potential. Such performances choreograph embodiments of erotic self-making, or “ qoolieness ,” as methods of pursuing transgressive Indo-Caribbean means of doing nonnormative gender and sexuality, offering us important vocalities that speak through genealogies of (post) indentureship chutney feminisms. My analysis of Indo-Guyanese chutney artist Mystic’s viral song and music video entitled “Coolie Bai” (2014) interrogates how such embodied articulations of qoolienessgenerate alternative forms of Indo-Caribbean citizenships, masculinities and strategies of remaking the self that move us beyond hegemonic ontological paradigms.
Summary
In the English-speaking Caribbean, nationalist discourses of sexual citizenship are inextricably linked to the aftermath of colonialism and its legacies, resonances and long-range affective continuities, as it reinscribes otherness in the bodies of sexual and gender “others”. Focusing our optics on the Indo-Caribbean, I explore how Chutney music archives offer disruptive methods, strategies, and praxis of transgression that problematize “normative” Creole (Afro-Caribbean) discourses and heteronormative nationalisms as “authentic” ideologies for assigning Indo-Caribbean genres — in In particular, masculinity. Drawing on the historical genealogies of the sexual-sacred erotica found in the Hindu tradition of the matikor—Exclusively of women, prenuptial and already Indo-Caribbean — I come to question how male artists in chutney music spaces carry out what I conceptualize as “qoolie subjectivities”, or different embodied languages of oneself that operate through what I postulate as intertwining long-standing Indo-Caribbeanism and queer life that, when excavated through the body, cultivate critical forms of Indo-Caribbean knowing and living.
In this essay, I specifically focus on the acts of remaking the pejorative term “coolie” from one harmful grammar to one of claim and active potency. Such interpretations choreograph incarnations of erotic self-doing, or of being “qoolie,” as methods of pursuing transgressive Indo-Carino means of doing.non-normative genders and sexualities, offering us important vocalities that speak through genealogies of chutney feminisms after the historical period of non-paid contract work. My analysis of Indo-Guyanese chutney artist Mystic’s viral song and music video, titled “Coolie Bai” (2014), interrogates how such articulations embodied as being “qoolie” generate alternative forms of Indo-Caribbean citizenships, masculinities, and strategies to remake the self that they move us beyond hegemonic ontological paradigms.
Author : Ryan persadie
CREDITS TO – https://tinyurl.com/y5mcegyu
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