Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Since the mid-1990s, more than 100 Indo-Canadian -or South Asian -men under the age of 30 have been murdered in Greater Vancouver.Generally described as "gang-" or "drug-related," these murders and related criminal incidents have easily lent themselves to sensationalism.As a result, the image of groups of young Indo-Canadian men engaged in various violent and criminal activities has become increasingly prevalent.This has been reinforced by perceptions of them as lacking a strong 'sense of belonging.'In this project, I explore notions of belonging and not belonging in relation to Indo-Canadian youth violence and criminality.I focus on how news media, various state institutions, and community organizations have related youth violence to the notion that youth lack a strong sense of belonging, as well as how discourses about, and responses to, youth violence have affected young Indo-Canadians' understandings of their own identities, ethnocultural difference, and multiculturalism.I frame my discussion in terms of three socio-spatial binaries that have become central to discourses about Indo-Canadian youth violence and criminality.First, I discuss discourses that position 'immigrant culture' in opposition to 'non-immigrant culture,' a key element of which is the idea of 'culture clash,' particularly over gender norms.Second, I examine conceptualizations of society as consisting of discrete, 'bounded' ethnocultural 'communities,' such that 'ethnic' stands in opposition to 'mainstream.'I point out the racialization of these boundaries, as reflected through discourses about 'Brownness' among young Indo-Canadians.Third, I discuss discourses of belonging and not belonging, in which youth are characterized as alienated from either an ethnic 'community' or wider society, leaving them in a supposed state of poor or misdirected moral development.I argue that these socio-spatial binaries have been challenged, contradicted, and made ambiguous, even as they have been deployed as dichotomies with distinct poles.Therefore, I also discuss the slippages, gaps, and contradictions that destabilize them.
Source: Summit (Simon Fraser University)
Author: Widyarini Sumartojo
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W146107955