Week 9 – Ghostly Matters

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog!   

Updates

This week I completed some of my final readings for the project as I begin to consolidate all of my findings. As you may recall, one of the goals of my project was to look for the origin of the inter-ethnic tension between North and South India. While there are many factors that should be considered, I wanted to look further into the effects of British colonization and how the resulting historic developments have snowballed into impacting the mental health of South Asian American youth in the Bay Area. Looking into the past in this way by analyzing various materials is known as “haunting,” a sociology technique from Avery Gordon’s book ‘Ghostly Matters’ and the Haunting of Sociological Research.1  

Although I had previously known that in general, North Indians and South Indians have different origins, I hadn’t realized how much of an impact British colonization had on South Asians. For example, before colonization, Madras (now known as Chennai) was known for being inclusive to all South Asians, and for celebrating the differences between various people groups. This changed drastically during British rule and the decades after because of how these differences were exacerbated to help the British maintain control.2  

Final Package

In the past week, I’ve also worked on my presentation slides, hoping that visualizing my project will help me with drafting my paper. Because of the various elements of my project, from interview and movie analysis to the overall use of “haunting,” I wanted to find the best way to highlight my findings in each while also connecting everything together. My interviews gave me insight into current youth sentiments about the ethnic divide, history, and mental health; my movie analysis showed me a snapshot of the sociocultural implications of the North and South India divide over the decades. Without each piece that I looked into, I wouldn’t have been able to observe the topic from a larger perspective, and I hope that I can translate this correctly in my deliverables.    

Thank you so much for reading, and see you next week!   

Works Cited

1. Gordon, A. F., & Radway, J. (1999). Ghostly Matters: Haunting And The Sociological Imagination. Contemporary Sociology, 28(1), 120. Https://Doi.Org/10.2307/2653923
2. Washbrook, D. (2004). South India 1770–1840: The Colonial Transition. Modern Asian Studies, 38(3), 479–516. Https://Doi.Org/10.1017/S0026749x03001197