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Materializing post-colonial geographies: examining the textural landscapes of migration in the South Asian home

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 12:53 authored by Divya Tolia-KellyDivya Tolia-Kelly
This paper considers the role of visual cultures in understanding the value of landscape to post-colonial migrants living in Britain. The paper also considers these visual cultures as prismatic devices which refract lived landscapes of South Asia and East Africa into British domestic scene. The visual cultures are investigated using a materialist lens. They are positioned as materials that allow embodied connections to landscapes experienced pre-migration, including sensory connections with past homes, natures and family life. These then become artefacts symbolising relationships with past landscapes, made meaningful in their presence in Britain homes. Using this materialist lens, visual cultures in the British Asian home, such as photographs, pictures, and paintings, are given meaning and value beyond their textual content. This paper is an exercise in reading visual cultures in the everyday through a materialist lens which allows for an examination of their place in the process of `making home' for South Asian women in Britain. In particular, objects presence the migratory experience of the South Asian community, importing `other' landscapes (previously shaped by colonial governance) into Britain, and help to shape environmental values, landscape imaginaries and South Asian landscapes of belonging in the post-colonial period.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Geoforum

ISSN

0016-7185

Publisher

Geoforum

Issue

6

Volume

35

Page range

675-688

Department affiliated with

  • Geography Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-04-17

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