Subtle Curry Traits: exploring constructions of “South Asianness” in a meme-sharing group

Abstract

<p>Subtle Curry Traits (SCT) is a digital group, comprising of almost 1 million members, that was created by diasporic South Asian youth to share humorous posts. While the group serves as an avenue for community building, it constructs a South Asian cultural identity that is based on inclusion and exclusion. Informed by critical cultural studies, post-colonial scholars and, anti-racist transnational feminists I analyze how notions of South Asianness are articulated, expressed, and constructed in the group, paying particular attention to the identities that are erased and overlooked. I do this by providing a narrative literature review of digital spaces and diasporic youth, historical and diasporic formations of South Asianness, and by conducting a multimodal critical discourse analysis on 76 posts shared on SCT’s Instagram page. I find that the traits and realities highlighted on the group as “South Asian” construct a heteropatriarchal, casteist, and North-Indian based identity as South Asian.</p>