Meaning Of Coolie Bai

53 views

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

YouTube
  1. Subscribe
Donate

Please consider Donating to keep our culture alive




Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply