When sarees speak: Saree pacts and social media narratives

Abstract

Through an ethnographic study of online saree pacts and social media groups, this article charts the emergence of digital saree storytelling as women from India and the global South Asian diaspora post stories about their personal and professional lives while also talking about their sarees. The article examines how saree stories are told and consumed in these online spaces, and the role new media plays in encouraging individual and collective self-expression through fashion. In doing so, it highlights how saree pacts allow for alternative models of fashion opinion leadership and style to emerge in ways that are uplifting and empowering for women who are otherwise underrepresented in print and popular fashion media. It argues that such sites are critical spaces shifting the narrative around women in the Global South from victimhood to pleasure. Additionally, saree pacts represent a new form of digital community formation centred around the appreciation of traditional fashion, which can alter our perception of the intersection of traditional fashion and feminism while also decolonising fashion's existing Eurocentric frameworks.