Getting by with my <i>Yaars</i>: Analyzing Decoloniality and the University through <i>Yaariyan</i>, <i>Gupshup</i> and <i>Baithak</i>

Abstract

This position paper engages with the possible intersection of decoloniality and the gender studies classroom. This paper is a reflection on the experience of an international, queer, South Asian student in the Netherlands, thinking through the theme of decolonizing at the University and in Gender Studies classrooms. This paper illustrates a personal stance on the questions of: What steps do I take, as a student, to engage with gender studies and the larger space of the university through the lens of decoloniality, and in what way is (de)coloniality made (in)visible or (re)produced? DECOLONIALITY, THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COVID-19 CLASSROOMAs a student of Gender Studies in the Global North, I often find myself surrounded with the demand for feminist scholarship to provide practical answers, as short and sweet as possible, for the world's material and intellectual entanglements. The limiting issues yet hopeful possibilities

South Asia and Sexuality: Still | Here

“…Ahmad reminds us, baithak in popular Urdu refers to a collective sitting or seating arrangement on the floor that creates more decolonial spatial formations. We make room, as it were (Ahmad, 2022). When evoked as Bethak , it involves a literal squat, a muscular fold that invites bodily surrender.…”