The masala of globalism: Repositioning ‘dis/placement’ in the films of Mira Nair

The displacement of cultures and re-imagination of place-bound identities is a common thread that binds most of the films of Mira Nair. Nair is an Indian-born, US-based director whose cinematic and documentary creations are both processes and products of a globalized culture. Her films operate on multiple levels of crossover cinematic philosophies, comprise cosmopolitan visual displays and grow out of transnational socio-political contexts, making her repertoire an ideal case study for the processes of modern globalism. In this article, my purpose is to critically analyse how Nair reconceptualizes the notions of ‘place’ and ‘displacement’ in her films, particularly in Mississippi Masala (1991) and The Namesake (2006). By tracing the transnational migration of two Indian families, Nair tries to cinematically capture their struggle to culturally reconfigure their identities within constantly mutating spatial contexts. The purpose of this article is to investigate the global–local implications of these two films, primarily from the theoretical perspective of deterritorialization, which can be understood as ‘the loss of the “natural” relation of culture to geographical and social territories’. I argue that Nair’s complex film narratives put forth an alternative visual framework for shifting notions of place and identity within the current context of ‘globalization [which] fundamentally transforms the relationship between the places we inhabit and our cultural practices, experiences and identities’.