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The Department of Learning and Performance Systems The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School The Department of Learning and Performance Systems PERPETUAL OUTSIDERS?: LEARNING RACE IN THE SOUTH ASIAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE A Dissertation in Adult Education by Edith Gnanadass © 2016 Edith Gnanadass Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2016 The dissertation of Edith Gnanadass was reviewed and approved* by the following: Fred M. Schied Associate Professor of Education Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Paul C. Taylor Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies Associate Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies Adnan Qayyum Associate Professor of Education Gabeba Baderoon Associate Professor of Women's Studies and African American Studies Ian Baptiste Assistant Dean, School of Arts and Sciences, St. George’s University, Grenada Special Member Mrinalini Sinha Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History, Professor of English, and Women's Studies, University of Michigan Special member Roy B. Clariana Professor of Education Director of Graduate Studies for Learning and Performance Systems *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Following Schueller (2003), I used critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005, 2012; Goldberg, 1993, 2009; Harpalani, 2003, 2013; I. H. F. López, 1994; Omi & Winant, 1994; Taylor, 2013) as an intervention into postcolonial theory (Chakrabarty, 2000; Chatterjee, 1993; Gandhi, 1998; Mani, 1998; U. Narayan, 1997a; Prashad, 2000; Said, 1979; Sinha, 2000a) to explore the relevance of the concept of race in the South Asian American (SAA) experience in the U.S. and how SAAs learn to become racialized. The focus in this study was on how participants learned, understood, and made sense of their racialized experience. Learning was defined from a sociocultural perspective using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987, 1999c, 2001; Sawchuk, 2003). Feminist ethnography was the research approach used to capture the thick descriptions of the SAA experience. The research was conducted in Summer, a college town, located in a northeastern state in the United States. Thematic narrative analysis (Riessman, 1993, 2008) complemented by Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), postcolonial feminist theory, and critical race theory was the analytical lens used in this study. The participants in the study learned to become South Asian American, a distinct racial identity. The data suggests that the concept of race is learned and that religion and caste (culture) in conjunction with skin color, hair color, and other physical attributes (biology) constitute the SAA racial category. SAAs are racialized differently from other groups, and following Goldberg’s (2009) typology, I call this type of differential racialization (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005, 2012), Racial South Asian Americanization. Looking at religion and caste as attributes of race decenters the dominant American perspective on race and racism, thus calling for a radical retheorization of race (Loomba,1998; Schueller 2003). This study contributes to postcolonial theory, Desicrit (the form of critical race theory that focuses on SAAs), CHAT, race theory, South Asian American Studies, and adult learning by demonstrating the relevance of race in the SAA experience. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. viii LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 Coming to the Question ................................................................................................... 1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 3 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................... 7 Research Purpose ..................................................................................................... 8 Primary Research Question ...................................................................................... 9 Methods .................................................................................................................... 12 Organization of Dissertation ............................................................................................ 13 Chapter 2 Analyzing the Racialized Experience of South Asian Americans in the United States: A Literature Review ............................................................................................. 15 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 15 Postcolonial Theory ......................................................................................................... 16 Critique of the Universality and Modernity of Europe ............................................ 18 Rethinking the Political ............................................................................................ 20 Silence on Race ........................................................................................................ 23 Critical Race Theory (CRT) ............................................................................................. 28 Race, Racial Formation, Racialization and Racism ................................................. 30 Three Perspectives on the SAA Racialized Experience ................................................... 32 Historical Perspective: Racist State and Civil Society ............................................. 35 South Asian pioneers: Discrimination and exclusion based on culture ........... 36 Historical-Materialist Perspective: Market Needs ................................................... 39 Convergence of interests .................................................................................. 39 South Asian Americans as model minorities ................................................... 41 Social-cultural Perspective: Responses to Subordination ........................................ 44 Racial identity: Aryan myth ............................................................................. 45 Reinvented ‘traditional’ identity: South Asian culture ..................................... 52 Reinvented Religious Identity: Yankee Hindutva ............................................ 57 Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework: Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a Perspective on Learning ................................................................................................... 61 Overview .................................................................................................................. 61 CHAT and the South Asian American Experience .................................................. 61 Brief history of CHAT ............................................................................................. 63 Activity ..................................................................................................................... 64 Three generations of Cultural Historical Activity Theory ....................................... 65 v First generation: Mediated human action ......................................................... 65 Second generation: Collective activity ............................................................. 67 Third generation: Activity system .................................................................... 69 Contradictions .......................................................................................................... 73 Engeström’s five principles of CHAT ..................................................................... 74 Learning in Cultural Activity Historical Theory ...................................................... 76 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 79 Chapter 4 Research Design ..................................................................................................... 80 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 80 Research Approach: Feminist Ethnography .................................................................... 82 Deconstructing and overcoming the self/other binary ............................................. 85 Politics of representation .......................................................................................... 86 Feminist ethics and responsibilities ......................................................................... 87 Researcher positionality ........................................................................................... 89 Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 92 Research site ............................................................................................................. 92 Purposive criterion sampling and recruitment ......................................................... 93 Participant profiles ..................................................................................................
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