Desi Queers: LGBTQ+ South Asians and Cultural Belonging in Britain - Seminar

Desi Queers draws on archives, oral histories, and creative material to tell the story of queer South Asian life in Britain. In this talk, we focus on the long 1980s as the point of emergence for a distinct thread of desi queer organising informed by earlier project of political blackness.  our case studies will draw on the work of Shakti, one of the first South Asian queer collectives in Britain (founded over 1987-88), and the creative work of its members.  Expanding on the concept of the Brown Atlantic, we will discuss the work of artists such as Pratibha Parma, Ian Iqbal Rashid and Sunil Gupta to argue how transnational modes of South Asian queer cultural production were being harnessed as forms of creative resistance and organising. 

To attend in person or online. Please contact nesouthasia.gmail.com.