Fusion, Confusion, or Illusion - Discursive Constructions of Health Among Second Generation South-Asian Canadian Women

Stereotypes emphasizing passivity, docility and uncleanliness all contribute to cultural (mis)understandings of Canadian women of South-Asian background. §Such understandings are part of dominant racist discourses, including "bodily" discourses related to health. This book provides insight into notions of health, beauty and negotiated racialized identity among ten young, second-generation South-Asian Canadian women from the Ottawa and Toronto area. Drawing on feminist postcolonialism and poststructuralism as lenses through which conversations are analyzed and interpreted, this book illustrates these young women's constructions of health and how racialized and gendered notions of "looking good" constitute a crucial element in their understanding of what it is to be "healthy" and "fit". The analysis and discussion further explore how these young women locate themselves as un/healthy subjects within larger cultural discourses of traditional (white) femininity, heteronormativity and consumption. This analysis is timely and informs contemporary theoretical debates in sociology, health studies, physical education, women and gender studies, ethnic studies and anti-racist scholarship.