In this commentary, I discuss scholarship on race in study of religion in South Asia. Using my experiences in the field, I look at how and why studies on race are marginalized, dismissed, and/or misread. I argue that without a feminist analysis informed by women of color feminisms and queer of color critique, race scholarship will only continue to be marginalized and/or misread even as the field of South Asian religions tries to center race as an object of analysis. I foreground race and caste power as a way to critique how threads of power run through much of the field of South Asian religions and structures the ways in which scholarship on race is approached (or not). As Asian studies broadly and South Asian Studies specifically creates new avenues for scholarship on race, the study of religion in South Asia must examine how racism is institutionalized within the field.
In this commentary, I examine tap dance as Black soundwork and antiracist activism. Tracing a controversy over the supposed Irish contributions to tap dance’s early history, I question why non-Black practitioners rely on academic knowledge production, especially when Black soundwork is not just marginalized in the academy, but often controlled and rewritten to adhere to white standards. I argue that non-Black peoples need to understand the ways in which origins perform political work, and to critically examine the ways in which correcting origins is only the first step to dismantling systemic racism.
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