South Asian American Political Lives: 2016 Elections and Beyond

A panel discussion on Sangay Mishra’s Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Focusing on Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi American communities, Desis Divided analyzes features such as class, religion, nation of origin, language, caste, gender, and sexuality in mobilization and shows how these internal characteristics lead to multiple paths of political inclusion, defying a unified group experience. Paula Chakravartty (Associate Professor, NYU Gallatin and the Department of Media Culutreal and Communications) serves as discussant.

Sangay Mishra specializes in immigrant political incorporation, global immigration, and racial and ethnic politics. Before joining Drew University in 2013, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Lehigh University. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is currently the cochair of Asian and Pacific American Caucus of the American Political Science Association and a member of Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans of the Western Political Science Association. He teaches courses on Race and Politics, Immigration, Public Policy, and International Relations. His book Desis Divided: The Political Lives of South Asian Americans was recently published by the University of Minnesota Press (use code MN 79650 for a 30% discount). His current research project focuses on the emerging patterns of interaction between Muslim communities and law enforcement agencies in the post-9/11 period. Another project is concerned with the transnational engagements of the Indian American diaspora.

Paula Chakravartty’s interests focus on global media and politics. Her research and teaching interests span comparative political economy of media industries, postcolonial and critical race theory, and social movements and global governance. She is the coeditor of Race, Empire and the Crisis of the Subprime (with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Johns Hopkins Press, 2013), the coauthor of Media Policy and Globalization (with Katharine Sarikakis, University of Edinburgh Press and Palgrave, 2006), and coeditor of Global Communications: Towards a Transcultural Political Economy (with Yuezhi Zhao, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008). Her writings have been published in a number of journals, including American Quarterly, International Journal of Communication, Media Culture and Society, and Political Communication. Her current two main research projects include: a book on the politics of digital inclusion in Brazil and India; and a second collaborative multi-year research project funded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) on mediated activism in India, China, and the Middle East. She is jointly appointed with the Department of Media, Culture and Communications in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.