“Today, we teach the kids where we are from": Event filmmaking and diasporic homemaking among Indian Muslims in North America

Author(s)

Sanderien Verstappen

Abstract

How do people make themselves at home in situations of migration, dispersal, and
marginalisation? Recently, migration scholars have destabilized the idea that a home is bound
to a dwelling, and are developing more processual ways of conceptualizing home. Here I bring
this research agenda into conversation with the anthropology of events to conceptualize social
events as a diasporic homemaking practice. I demonstrate how event filmmaking, a genre of
ethnographic filmmaking, can be used as a method in studies of social events and diasporic
homemaking. To develop this conceptual and methodological contribution, I discuss a film I
made about the Vohra families reunion, a social event of Indian Gujarati Muslims (Vohras) in
the U.S.A. and Canada. I interpret the reunion’s potential as a homemaking practice in the light
of the social position of Muslims as a religious minority in the U.S.A., in India, and in the
Indian diaspora.

Organisation(s)

Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology

Journal

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

ISSN

2049-1115

Publication date

2022

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

504017 Cultural anthropology, 504021 Migration research

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/today-we-teach-the-kids-where-we-are-from-event-filmmaking-and-diasporic-homemaking-among-indian-muslims-in-north-america(ca87965d-4860-4143-9e58-f9426fd2a70c).html