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iv. Jugaad: Method of Mimicry
Jugaad: Method of Mimicry
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Homi K. Bhabha, in Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse discusses the concept of Mimicry as that which represents the difference between the colonial standard and the other, by appropriating both and taking on an ambivalent position at this border. He mentions, “It is a form of colonial discourse that is uttered inter dicta: a discourse at the crossroads of what is known and permissible and that which though known must be kept concealed; a discourse uttered between the lines and as such both against the rules and within them.” 116 This image is a representation of this concept of mimicry— both the motorcycle and the multiple boots represent a material property that ties them to the discourse of capitalism and mass production. But by boiling down the purpose of a wheel and the importance of rubber when that wheel contacts the road, the original intent of both objects is ignored and the action is queered to rely on simply the required affordability.
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Muñoz discusses, “A queer aesthetic can potentially function as a great refusal because art manifests itself in such a way that the political imagination can spark new ways of perceiving and acting on a reality that is itself potentially changeable.” 117 Jugaad, as a queer aesthetic is, therefore, a tool of mimicry, as Bhabha describes it. It refuses to privilege the binary categorizations and contradictions placed on technologies and by occupying a place at the border of original instrumentality and the action that requires the queering to occur, it stands in defiance of the normative. In this context, that border is between the movement of the wheel and the intended use of the boots. By privileging the affordance of the rubber sole of the boot over its origin story as an object for the human body, this act of queering constructs a new reality and refuses the narrative of assigned use that capitalism feeds its preys. Jugaad is, therefore, an act of protest.
116.Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” October 28 (1984): p. 125, https://doi. org/10.2307/778467. 117. Munoz, Cruising Utopia, 135