South Asian Studies

A tight-knit network of informal traders is exploiting a vacuum of law enforcement in southern Nepal to generate significant operating capital for the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The traders employ the same money laundering techniques as others in Nepal did a decade before, as the legal loopholes, lack of infrastructure, and widespread corruption that created these opportunities were not addressed. Nepal and India continue to focus on individual criminals in their attempts to shut down the networks, rather than reforming the structural conditions allowing the networks to operate. As a result, the traders operate in an environment conducive for the creation of vast sums of informal wealth with few barriers to operation and at little risk.

World War experiences, perceptions and perspectives from Africa and Asia.
The volume situates itself within the growing field of research on the global social history of the World Wars. By investigating social and cultural aspects of these wars in African, South Asian and Middle Eastern societies it aims at recovering both the diversity of perspectives and their intersections. Drawing substantially on new sources such as oral accounts, propaganda material and artistic representations, the publication investigates the experiences of combatants and civilians on the frontline and in the rear of the front. It studies spontaneous and organized responses manifested in public debates, propaganda activities, and in individual and collective memories. Questioning conventional periodizations and discussing both wars together, the book analyses broader implications of the wars for African and Asian societies which resulted in significant social and political transformations.

The proposed book aims to showcase for such a readership contributions from fourteen experts from academia, government and NGOs located in eight Quebec and international universities and institutions. The first part of the book develops a specific and detailed portrait of the population,
presenting its migration history, the constitution of the community, and its various social, demographic and economic characteristics. Recognizing the ethno-religious heterogeneity within this group, this part sketches, in a third and final chapter, the religious diversity of Quebec’s South Asian
population, by establishing important correlations with the notion of
ethnicity. This chapter will open debates addressed in the next book part, on the social integration of a specific group of South Asians, Muslims, and social challenges specific to this group. Each of the four next parts focuses on a challenge (e.g., linguistic, school, cultural, and health) faced by the population throughout Quebec, in the Montreal metropolitan area or in the province’s outlying regions. The integrative nature of the book’s conclusion will make a synthesis of common and specific elements across the chapters and it will open a comparative discussion with issues facing other immigrant groups in Quebec.

By drawing upon a series of immensely popular Punjabi films that centre around the character of Maula Jatt, this paper explores the code of masculinity depicted in the genre of rural based Punjabi vendetta films. The character of Maula Jatt and other similar characters in Punjabi films are approached here as constitutive of a specific male cultural type. Films, it should be noted, are studied as sources through which to understand wider cultural discourses of masculinity that are compelling at a particular historical juncture. It is stressed here that in critically engaging with masculinity one has to discard notions of natural, fixed or unitary notions of maleness. Not only is masculinity in itself a relational construct, there are also numerous codes of masculinity that co-exist in a particular context. Hence, this paper is attentive to ways in which Punjabi films present a series of actions and qualities as being the sole domain of manly men as well as to the celebration of a particular code of masculinity over others and its presentation as the standard to judge the worth of all men by. For instance, the ability to protect one’s izzat (honour), which is vested in the body and chastity of women (who are under the guardianship of men), openly display arms and ammunition, exact revenge and rise against the state’s law and order machinery are heralded as markers of masculinity. Beyond examining the presentation of men in relation to women, this paper asserts the importance of examining masculinity in terms of caste identities. Approaching gender in relational terms entails the study of how hegemonic masculinities function by demonstrating their superiority not only over women but also ‘other’ men. In the films studied here, the Jatt protagonist is portrayed as representing the hegemonic masculinity. Other caste groups are measured according to their ability to live up to this form of masculinity. In turn, the Jatt’s superior masculinity is itself reified by the very fact that other caste groups are valued according to characteristics that are supposed to mark out a manly Jatt.

The use of ‘South Asian’ ethnic categorization was investigated to determine if there is consistency in its use in health research in Canada. Quantitative content analysis and a secondary qualitative content analysis were carried out on articles retrieved from a systematic review of Canadian health research conducted on ‘South Asians’ from 2005 to 2012. About 22% of articles (n = 31) examining South Asian health in Canada failed to include an explicit definition of ‘South Asian’. The failure to use a consistent operationalized definition throughout the study and the inappropriate application of findings to the relevant South Asian subpopulations were the major problems noted in the literature. Given the contextuality and fluidity of ethnic identity, the authors recommend the consistent use of explicit definitions of the specific subgroup of interest and that findings based on specific subgroups not be applied to the ‘South Asian community’ at large.