Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Beenash Jafri, "Settler Attachments and Asian Diasporic Film"
Host: Eileen
Guest: Professor Beenash Jafri (Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, UC Davis)
Air Date: December 23, 2025

Main Theme

The episode explores Professor Beenash Jafri's book, "Settler Attachments and Asian Diasporic Film" (University of Minnesota Press, 2025). The book interrogates how Asian diasporas are attached to settler colonial ideals and the decolonial possibilities imagined through film and visual media. Situating her work at the intersection of film/media studies, diaspora/ethnic studies, Indigenous studies, and queer theory, Jafri pushes for nuanced critiques of race, diaspora, and indigeneity—challenging the simplistic coalitional identity of "people of color" and inviting scholars to reflect on attachment, relationality, and imaginative futures in both scholarship and activism.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Motivations of the Book

• Professor Jafri’s upbringing in Toronto, particularly Scarborough—a multicultural, working-class immigrant neighborhood—deeply influenced her understanding of identity, race, and nationhood ([04:03-05:15]).
• The concept of "people of color," initially empowering, became complicated in activist/academic spaces when considering the distinct relationships Indigenous peoples have with the state compared to other racialized groups ([05:26-07:10]).
• Early activism and social movement work revealed the need to interrogate diasporic and Indigenous coalitions beyond multicultural rhetoric ([06:43-08:28]).
• Jafri’s shift from social movement sociology to film and cultural analysis provided tools to probe underlying desires, affects, and tensions shaping Asian/Indigenous relationships ([09:46-10:41]).
• Films and visual media, for Jafri, open speculative, affective, and sometimes uncomfortable spaces for examining settler attachments and decolonial possibilities ([11:35-15:29]).

Notable Quote:
"I was wanting to get to some of the underlying desires and anxieties and feelings and affects that were also framing these relationships between diasporic people and Indigenous peoples." — Professor Jafri [10:41]

2. Why Film and How the Archive Was Curated

• Jafri underscores that social movements and artistic practices are deeply intertwined, as many filmmakers are themselves activists ([11:42-12:10]).
• Her research began with examining the "cowboy" figure as a symbol of settler nationhood and longing for belonging among non-white populations ([12:10-13:04]).
• The transition to experimental and independent films allowed Jafri to think about other kinds of speculative and affective relationalities, not just the dominant settler narrative ([13:58-15:58]).
• She curated her archive not to be exhaustive but to probe specific political questions, selecting works that exposed varied attachments and possibilities—e.g., films exploring the cowboy figure, and works by Shani Muthu, Vivek Shraya, Ali Kazmi, and Jin-me Yoon ([16:36-20:12]).

3. Global Frameworks and Methodological Reflections

• Although grounded in North America, Jafri reflects on how settler colonialism as an analytic can travel to contexts like Palestine, Kashmir, or Taiwan, linking ongoing struggles for decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty ([22:03-25:56]).
• She cautions against seeking a universal method, instead emphasizing attention to place and context ([24:26-24:46]).

Notable Quote:
"Thinking about the specificities of place and of context I think are really important." — Professor Jafri [24:40]

4. Chapter Deep Dives: Themes, Case Studies, and Methods

A. Chapter 1: The Asian Cowboy

• Jafri explores the appeal of the cowboy figure to diasporic subjects, its global circulation (e.g., the Indian film "Sholay" dubbed a "curry Western"), and its deep ties to settler nationhood ([26:37-27:59]).
• Critiques that diasporic claims to the cowboy often ignore the centrality of Indigenous erasure and reinforce settler structures ([29:24-32:06]).
• The melancholy of these films is less about exclusion from the national body than about lost or absent relations with Indigenous peoples ([30:45-31:37]).

Notable Quote:
"What is the cowboy also doing with respect to indigenous people? … If we're asking to be included in this vision of the cowboy, then, like, who is left out?" — Professor Jafri [29:23]

B. Relational Critique as Methodology

• Moving beyond absence/presence in representation, Jafri argues for centering indigeneity and exploring relational imaginaries—including how land and place are depicted ([32:55-35:11]).
• Affects and moods (longing, melancholy) become crucial diagnostics ([35:15-35:46]).

C. Chapter 2: Body and Land Impasse—Queer, Trans, BIPOC Artists

• Jafri discusses Shani Muthu and Vivek Shraya—queer South Asian diasporic artists—and how their works emerged in response to Canadian/Indigenous events (notably the 1990 "Oka Crisis") ([36:26-40:09]).
• Raises the "body and land impasse," where experiences of racialized violence are structured such that connection to Indigenous struggles for land is displaced, not out of ignorance but through structural constraints ([41:04-43:12]).
• On the term "BIPOC": Jafri traces its origins (potentially Toronto), viewing it as grassroots innovation to address hierarchy and specificity within "people of color" solidarity ([44:30-46:56]).

Notable Quote:
"It’s a grassroots invention ... trying to figure out more just or more ethical ways of being in relation with one another." — Professor Jafri [46:07]

D. Chapters 3 & 4: Friendship, Kinship, and Speculative Futures

• Chapter 3 centers on Ali Kazmi’s "Shooting Indians," examining friendship over decades as a form of deep decolonial relationality ([49:02-52:27]).
• Jafri draws on queer theory, privileging friendship and non-normative kin over biological/familial modes, and queries how deep, transformative bonds might model new solidarities ([53:24-54:59]).
• Examples from recent films, like "Scarborough" and "This Place", illustrate both the challenges and possibilities of representing non-romantic intimacy and cross-racial friendships ([55:31-59:30]).

Notable Quote:
"How do we get to the depth of friendship and its intensity…that isn’t just romantic? How do we talk about love in a way that isn’t a love song but is about, you know …" — Professor Jafri [58:07]

E. Coda: Toward Decolonial Sensibilities

• Jafri closes the book with Jin-me Yoon’s participatory performance, where sensory deprivation and artistic exercises facilitate new ways of feeling relationships to land, body, and difference ([60:00-62:59]).
• She calls for a move beyond the cerebral, analytical mode to “inhabit our bodies and our senses…differently,” engaging decolonial relationality affectively ([62:41-62:54]).

5. Pedagogy and Teaching

• Jafri shares classroom strategies for engaging students in thinking collaboratively about their implication in systems of oppression, using exercises and art/media to provoke collective reflection ([64:01-66:41]).
• Emphasizes the power of film and art to stimulate affective modes of learning, break textual saturation, and open complexity ([66:17-66:52]).

6. Current and Future Projects

• Co-editing a special Amerasia issue on Asian settler colonial analytics, reflecting on developments 25 years after Hananike Trask’s foundational interventions ([67:17-68:20]).
• Beginning research on "conservatism" in relation to ongoing political dynamics ([68:24-68:36]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the limits of "representation only" frameworks:
  "If you're thinking about representation…then the most you can say is like, somebody's not there. You know, something's not there. But I wanted to think about…not just about who's there and how they represented it, how they represented, and who's not there, but also about what else is happening." — Professor Jafri [33:31]

• On relationality and solidarity:
  “How do we talk about white supremacy and … relationships across different communities without also conflating struggles and while also recognizing … dynamics that also are deep seated and structural…impact[ing] the way that we relate to one another.” — Professor Jafri [46:18-46:56]

• On imagining futures:
  "What might it feel like to live in a different type of world that is attuned to decolonial relationships?" — Professor Jafri [61:27]

Key Timestamps

• 00:00-01:28 — Sponsor messages (skipped)
• 01:32-03:21 — Professor Jafri's academic background and journey
• 03:21-10:41 — Origins/motivations for the book; shift to film/media
• 11:35-15:29 — Why film? Interconnections of art and activism
• 16:36-20:25 — Archive-building; case selection rationale
• 22:03-25:56 — Methodology’s global relevance and limitations
• 26:37-32:06 — Asian cowboy: representation, absences, and national belonging
• 32:55-35:46 — Relational methodology, centering indigeneity
• 36:26-46:56 — Chapter 2: QT BIPOC artists, Oka Crisis, body/land impasse, terminology critique
• 49:02-54:59 — Friendship as radical potential, queer kinship models
• 55:31-59:30 — Representing friendship & love beyond romance in film
• 60:00-62:59 — Imaginative/speculative closure: feeling into decolonial possibility
• 64:01-66:41 — Pedagogical strategies; moving beyond cerebral analysis
• 67:17-68:36 — Current & upcoming projects

Engaging Takeaways for New Listeners

• Jafri’s work challenges easy solidarity frameworks, instead insisting on reckoning with the persistent attachments to settler colonialism present in diasporic life and art.
• Film and art are not just representations but portals—they help us access the affective, speculative, and sometimes ugly attachments that pure analysis or activism may bypass.
• Relational critique matters: examining how relationships to Indigenous peoples and land are structured, erased, or yearned for unveils both the limits and the creative potential of coalition politics.
• Solidarity is not a given, nor inherently radical—it requires ongoing labor, affective work, and imaginative leaps. Friendship, kinship, and artistic collaboration offer alternative, regenerative pathways.
• For educators: Jafri models an engaged, participatory pedagogy that leverages media and collective exercises to unpack difficult questions and structural complicities.
• Invitation: The episode, like the book, closes with an invitation—not for simple solutions, but for readers/listeners to imagine, feel, and sense relationships and futures differently.

Summary prepared by Podcast Summarizer AI
Original language and tone maintained for accessibility to those who haven’t listened.