Diaspora, Indigeneity, Queer Critique

The concepts of diaspora and indigeneity are often framed as antithetical: diaspora by its very definition seems to privilege mobility, hybridity, and migration, while indigeneity by its very definition seems to privilege rootedness, belonging, and authenticity. Chapter 3 proposes that a consideration of the aesthetic, and of queer visual aesthetic practices in particular, allows us to conceptualize the relation between diaspora and indigeneity outside of binary opposition. Placing in tandem the work of three artists—the Australian indigenous photographer and video artist Tracey Moffatt, the Pakistani-born mixed media artist Seher Shah, and the Kenyan-Indian/British photographer and mixed media artist Allan deSouza—this chapter produces a critical framework that spans both colonial and postcolonial pasts and presents, as well as disparate national and regional spaces simultaneously (extending from South Asia, to the U.S., Europe, and Australia).