Godna/Tattoo: The Rearticulation of Indian Traditions in Post-Indentured Trinidad

media release: UW Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program Lunchtime Lecture Series. The events are free and open to the public.

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About the presentation: This paper explores how members of the Indian Trinidadian South Asian diasporic community perceive continuity and change within their identitarian Hindu religio-cultural practices and folk artforms through a historical-anthropological examination of godna. Godna refers to a hand-poke tattooing practice through which Hindu women embodied ethnic and religious identity as ex-indentured Indians reassembled community from remembered fragments of pre-indentured lives. Drawing upon a collection of tattoo or “godna” narratives and images from more than sixty elderly Hindu women in Trinidad collected between 2005-2007, I examine how the practice functioned to exteriorize and affirm in-group identification in the past and into the present. I draw upon embodiment theory to examine the practice of tattooing as an expression of community cohesion and the tension between the sacrality of marriage and patriarchal constructions of the female body. Through ethnographic examples and narrative synthesis, I address how godna captures continuity and transformation for this community in its entanglement with space and place.

About the presenter:  Vishala Parmasad completed her PhD in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Canada, her MSc at University College London, UK, and her MBBS/MD at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. Prior to joining Dr. Voils team, she worked in the Department of Medicine at UW Madison, in the Division of Infectious Diseases. She performed research into healthcare associated infections, antibiotic stewardship, and COVID-19. She has experience conducting implementation science, qualitative, and mixed methods research and working with clinicians and patient populations. On the team, she conducts research and improves health care quality and outcomes through providing research support for Dr. Voils’ VA and NIH funded trials. Outside of work, Vishala enjoys hiking, reading, kayaking, and traveling.