| This study explores the ways a new genre of transnational interactive digital media shape second-generation Indo-Canadian identity. Drawing on interviews with 30 second-generation Indo-Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area, I examine how they use, self-represent, and are represented on a popular online matrimonial website, Shaadi.com, the world's largest online South Asian matrimonial service. I further interrogate what such representations might mean for their understandings of themselves, their cultures, and relationship formation and development.;This study reveals the importance of women in defining and interpreting national and ethnic identities. I posit diasporic consciousness as a prevalent theoretical construct in understanding how second-generation Indo-Canadians define and negotiate identity, and form and develop relationships. Family honour and legacy activate diasporic consciousness during important life choices. The negotiations around homeland orientation and boundary maintenance illustrate the importance of stable locations for identity in the second-generation and beyond.;I consider how these young adults use the construction of their personal profiles to negotiate generational values and desires. They enter Shaadi.com searching for a symbolic resource to define their identity and, more specifically, the symbolic boundaries of Canadian and Indian. Although Shaadi.com is a space enabling research participants to imagine Indian values, it also frames this imagination by the marketing images of brides and grooms on the main page and the categories on their application form. Together, along with the ideologies users come online with, Shaadi.com forms a quality single ideal, outlining standards of desirability, which are markers of authentic Indian-ness. The standards of desirability are cues of attractiveness around gender, sexuality, race, and class, aiding users' representations and how they read the representations of attractive profiles in the limited space of self-disclosure. This study also investigates how the values that encapsulate the website set the tone for the formation and development of relationships, as Shaadi.com is one element in an integrated communication system that research participants use to negotiate community and build relationships. |
