Decolonize Drag
Although imagined as a queer subcultural practice, drag seems to be everywhere we look: from AI filters on TikTok to brunchtime entertainment, from state legislations to political rallies. Yet as drag enters the mainstream—largely due to the intense, global popularity of reality TV competition RuPaul’s Drag Race—some kinds of gender-based performance fall out of the purview of what we (could) call drag.
Decolonize Drag details the ways that gender is used as a form of colonial governance to eliminate various types of expression, and tracks how contemporary drag, including that on Drag Race, both replicates and disrupts these institutional hierarchies. This book focuses on several gender performers that resist and laugh at colonial projects through their aesthetic practices. It also features the voice of Khubchandani's drag alter ego, judgmental South Asian aunty LaWhore Vagistan. From the firsthand perspective of a drag artist, LaWhore describes encounters with depoliticized versions of drag that leave her disappointed and perplexed, and prompts Khubchandani for context and analysis.
Their dynamic sets the tone for the book, investigating how drag—and gender more broadly—has been privatized and delimited so that it's only available to certain people. Decolonize Drag argues for more abundance in and access to fashioning gender, and considers how drag changes meaning and efficacy as it shifts across geographies.
Book At A Glance
# of Pages: 224
Book Binding: Paperback
Year of Publication: 2023
Publisher: OR Books
Language: en
ISBN: 9781682193952
Creator Bio
Kareem Khubchandani is an interdisciplinary scholar, performer, and writer whose work focuses on the intersections of queer and South Asian identities. He is an Assistant Professor of Drama, Dance, and Performance Studies at Tufts University, where he also serves as the Director of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on “Ethnography and Excess.” Khubchandani’s research and creative work have been featured in numerous publications, and he is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and NPR. He is also a performer and drag artist, known for his alter ego LaWhore Vagistan. Bhakti Shringarpure is a writer, editor, and scholar whose work centers on decolonization, postcolonialism, and global literature. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the literary journal Warscapes and a professor at the University of Connecticut. Shringarpure’s work has been published in various academic journals, and she has also curated and edited several anthologies. Together, Khubchandani and Shringarpure have co-authored the thought-provoking book "Decolonize Drag (Decolonize That!)", which explores the ways in which drag can be a tool for decolonization and resistance.
Book Categories:
BIPOC , Grown-Ups , LGBTQIA , Nonfiction
