Feeling Sexy and Cool in the Diaspora: The Construction of Hybrid Identities for Young Migrants through Dressing and Dancing

In an increasingly globalised world, the construction of hybrid identities for young migrants can be seen as advantageous as their senses of belonging to multiple cultures shift spatially and temporally. As Dwyer (2000) suggests, hybrid identities transcend polarities where self and other are essentialised, and this article builds on this assertion through demonstrating the ways in which Indian young women living in the diaspora feel both contested and 'cool' in relation to their feelings of difference. In research that focuses on migrants, feelings of difference are often aligned with complexities when adapting to a new culture; however, this article will highlight how feelings of difference are seen by young migrants as desirable across certain spaces. The hybrid identities of the young women in this research enable them to challenge the contestations often associated with the dichotomisation of their identities across different public spaces in Brisbane, Australia, through their use of cultural knowledge on how to perform Indianness. Through challenging the discourses that seek to essentialise difference, the young women are empowered through their awareness of the feelings associated with being Indian in the diaspora. As Noble and Tabar (2002, p. 144) indicate, hybridity 'rests on a "strategic essentialism"' where the identities of young people co-exist, so they can have a 'wider scope of manoeuverability and a sense of agency needed for their responses to their social environment.'