In the last decade, access to digital communication technologies has created opportunities for young people on the margins of the national imaginary in India to take part in transnational media worlds. In his recently published book, Dattatreyan uses the ‘globally familiar’ as an analytic to engage with the recursive effects of online media consumption, production, and circulation amongst young migrant men in Delhi who invest their energies in the Black aesthetics of hip hop. In this talk, he reflects on how, eight years after he first started fieldwork with these young men, the social and economic opportunities that have emerged for them as a result of their online/offline hip hop play continue to shape their gendered aspirations in and through circuits of late capitalism.

Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research engages with the ways in which digital media consumption, production, and circulation shape understandings of migration, gender, race, and urban space. His first book, The Globally Familiar: Digital Hip-Hop, Masculinity, and Urban Space in Delhi, was published by Duke University Press in 2020.

RSVP by 11 AM (PST) on Wednesday, January 27th; you will receive Zoom link and password at 11:30 AM the day of the colloquium.

The Center for Cultural Studies hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work by faculty and visitors. We gather online at 12:10 PM, with presentations beginning at 12:15 PM.

Staff assistance is provided by the Humanities Institute.

*2020-2021 colloquia will be held virtually until further notice. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own coffee, tea, and cookies to the session.