When the tide goes out : Desi Left in British Columbia, 1978 to 1989
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Asian Studies, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Bhardwaj, Ajay
issued: 2025-03-31T07:00:00Z
issued: 2022
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The central preoccupation of this dissertation is human mobility and how mobility in form of myriad diasporas has transformed our world. In charting diasporas, I focus on a community of progressive South Asian Canadian labour cultural activists termed as the Desi Left in British Columbia. Theoretically, I seek to interrogate Robin Cohenâs concepts of ethnoreligious diasporic community and homeland nationalism that produce a singular immigrant history. Gyanendra Pandeyâs conceptual understanding of unarchived history and trifling/exile within provides the framework to write the Desi Leftâs history and uncover the structural inequality of gender within it. By discussing labour cultural activism around a strand of the Desi Left- the Canadian Farmworkers Union in British Columbia (1978-1989)- I connect the early fragments of the Desi Leftâs history with that of local socialists, trade union activists and the broader South Asian community. The cultural work of progressive writers and their literary societies in the 1970s and the 1980s generated a massive archive that allows me to document the history of the Desi Left. To further enrich resources for this study, I recorded extensive video interviews with labour cultural activists who crossed racial and communal boundaries in cultural solidarity work during the period. My list of cultural activists is made up of women organizers, leaders of the farmworkersâ movement, musicians, writers, visual artists, theatre activists, and filmmakers. Their cultural productionâ photos, posters, artwork, radio interviews, plays and videos documentaries gave a distinct cultural turn in the history of the Desi Left. The rich multimedia archive informing this dissertation has given me an opportunity to explore new methodological directions, including the production of a two-hour video documentary When the Tide Goes Out. This documentary is an integral part of this dissertation.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/81471
note: WHEN THE TIDE GOES OUT: DESI LEFT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1978 TO 1989 by Ajay Bhardwaj A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Asian Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March 2022 © Ajay Bhardwaj, 2022 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: WHEN THE TIDE GOES OUT: DESI LEFT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA, 1978 TO 1989 submitted by Ajay Bhardwaj in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in ASIAN STUDIES Examining Committee: Dr. Harjot Oberoi, Professor, Department of Asian Studies, UBC. Supervisor Dr. Adheesh Sathaye, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies, UBC. Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Sebastian Prange, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies, UBC. Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Geraldine Pratt, Professor, Department of Geography, UBC. University Examiner Dr. Christina Laffin, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies, UBC. University Examiner iii Abstract The central preoccupation of this dissertation is human mobility and how mobility in form of myriad diasporas has transformed our world. In charting diasporas, I focus on a community of progressive South Asian Canadian labour cultural activists termed as the Desi Left in British Columbia. Theoretically, I seek to interrogate Robin Cohenâs concepts of ethnoreligious diasporic community and homeland nationalism that produce a singular immigrant history. Gyanendra Pandeyâs conceptual understanding of unarchived history and trifling/exile within provides the framework to write the Desi Leftâs history and uncover the structural inequality of gender within it. By discussing labour cultural activism around a strand of the Desi Left- the Canadian Farmworkers Union in British Columbia (1978-1989)-…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2022-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0413229
language: eng
degree discipline: Asian Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Oberoi, Harjot
type: Text
type: Moving Image
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/81471