“Vanakkam, Darlings!”

Abstract

Over the past decade, a section of Indian South African content creators has taken to portraying stereotypical Indian South African cultural traits in their posts on social media. Much of this content incorporates South African Indian English (SAIE), an idiosyncratic ‘Durban Indian’ accent, niche humour pertaining to Charou culture, and markers such as cuisine and attire. In doing so, these content creators primarily speak to a diaspora audience whose culture is influenced by both Indian heritage and South African nationality. For diasporic minorities, expressions of digital sociality can foster a sense of social cohesion within a population – thereby encouraging their sense of belonging to a hybridised cultural identity. This phenomenon may be especially useful for Indian South Africans, considering that experiences of displacement and non-belonging feature strongly in their history. Initial migrants from India were distanced from their homeland as transnational bodies; their descendants were subjected to strong anti-Indian sentiments during the colonial and apartheid eras; and certain political factions still contest Indian South African belonging in the democratic era. It is therefore interesting to explore Indian South Africans’ sense of belonging to their hybridised culture through the lens of contemporary digital expression. Using a qualitative research approach, this formative research presents the results of individual interviews with respondents who are familiar with this genre of content on Facebook. It asks how consumers of such content perceive the relevant content creators’ portrayals of stereotypical Indian South African cultural traits, how such representations resonate with their cultural identity, and their potential to encourage feelings of sociocultural belonging. By situating the answers to these questions within the theoretical frameworks of diaspora and digital sociality, this study examines the ways in which members of the Indian South African community experience a sense of belonging (or not) to their hybridised cultural identities through the consumption of niche, culture-specific Indian South African digital content. The study argues that this community is likely to feel a sense of belonging from their consumption of expressions of niche cultural behaviours and markers, but not from the type of content they perceive as immature and offensive.