Transnational America

This week’s reading was based upon Transnational America, a text by Inderpal Grewal. Transnational America is about the production of the middle-class Asian Indian and how the American subjects were produced in the 1990s as neoliberal subjects through moments of converging biopolitical and geopolitical interests. (1) To discuss this area she focuses on “ the subjects and identities that grew out of the knowledges produced by feminisms, nationalisms of various sorts, forms of governmentality and disciplinary power. (1) Through the case studies written in her book, like for example the “Indian Barbie” case study, are we able to see how “America” as a discourse works.

As identified previously, the “Indian Barbie” case, interestingly enough, could be looked at as an act of imperialism as Barbie is an American based doll. Yet, with this study, this is not her focus, she wants to reveal how “America” as a discourse produced this type of agency so she argues that Mattel’s doll relied upon “the transnationalization of the beauty and fashion industry in India as well as the transnational connectivities produced by diasporic Indians.” (89) With stating this, she is not focusing on the U.S as an imperialist nation as many other transnational scholars would do, and she does this with her other case studies within the book as well. After reading her piece with Kaplan ‘Scattered Hegemonies’ previously, by writing this book she further cements her ideas and provides further ideas for the reader to really thing about.