Shalini Shankar, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies, Northwestern Illinois University
Wednesday, April 15, 2009. 12 noon - 1:00 PM, AACC Lounge.
Topic: Translating Lives, Translating Brands: Creating Asian American Advertising
How do advertisers imagine and appeal to a diverse and varied Asian American market? Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Asian American advertising agencies, Shankar will examine how Asian American advertisers account for the vast ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic differences contained within this category, and analyze how they use specific attributes of ethnicity—including language, nationality, religion, and generation—to produce racialized commercial imagery while avoiding stereotypes and negative representations.

Biography: Shalini Shankar is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at Northwestern University. Her interests in cultural and linguistic anthropology include race, ethnicity, media, youth, language use, Asian America, and the South Asian diaspora. Her book Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class, and Success in Silicon Valley (Duke U. Press, 2008) examines how youth of different class backgrounds and immigration histories participate in youth culture, negotiate racial and ethnic identity, and imagine their futures in a transforming Silicon Valley. Her current work examines racial representations of Asian Americans in advertising. She is conducting ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork in Asian American and general market advertising agencies in New York City.