South Asian Popular Culture is an interdisciplinary journal designed to respond to the growing interest in South Asian popular culture within the different subject disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. South Asian popular culture is defined in a broad and inclusive way to incorporate lived and textual cultures, the mass media, ways of life, and discursive modes of representation. Central to the formation of popular cultures are articulations of the economic, social and political spheres and the journal welcomes contributions that will highlight these issues.
South Asian Popular Culture is of interest to cultural, media, and film studies, as well as social geography, history, diaspora studies, postmodern and postcolonial theoretical formulations, and contributions are invited from these fields. The journal critically examines from theoretical and empirical perspectives the production, distribution, and consumption of South Asian popular cultural forms within the subcontinent and across international borders. Attention to the use of popular cultures in the South Asian diasporas as well as the development of traditional cultural practices in forging hybrid forms is also an important focus. As such the journal is a forum for authors from around the world.
The journal of South Asian Popular Culture seeks to serve as an innovative and informative venue to discuss and debate the emergence and vibrancy of new forms of social, economic, cultural and political strategies and representations including those in film, music, radio, television, the press, fiction, sports, visual and cyber cultures, fashion, dance and sexuality. These forms, in fact, pose a challenge to be understood within a context of culture that enshrines a transnational focus and open attitude towards difference and diversity. The journal also encourages the exploration of how South Asian cultural practice has developed within wider parameters of transnational policies of art and culture.
South Asian Popular Culture also features a regular section entitled Working Notes that includes contributions from cultural practitioners within South Asian popular culture (film, radio, and television makers, musicians, artists, personnel, cultural activists, fashion designers, and sexuality campaigners). It offers original insights into their work and current debates by way of interviews, diary notes, short essays, visual images and discussions.
All research articles in this journal have undergone editorial screening and anonymous peer review.
