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Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora

Edited by Joya Chatterji, David Washbrook

To Be Published February 28th 2013 by Routledge – 464 pages

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  • Hardback: 978-0-415-48010-9: $200.00
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Description

South Asia’s diaspora is among the world’s largest and most widespread, and it is growing exponentially. In 2001, the government of India estimated that 20 million persons of Indian descent live abroad; and many more millions have roots to other countries of the subcontinent, in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There are three million South Asians in the UK and approximately the same number resides in North America. South Asians are an extremely significant presence in Southeast Asia and Africa, and increasingly visible in the Middle East.

This inter-disciplinary Handbook on the South Asian diaspora brings together contributions by leading scholars and rising stars on different aspects of its history, anthropology and geography, as well as its contemporary political and socio-cultural implications. The Handbook situates the contemporary diaspora firmly within an historical context. South Asians have travelled abroad for many reasons, in many guises, to many destinations for many centuries. The first section of the Handbook provides a historically grounded analysis of these movements of people. It includes chapters on the following themes: mobile South Asians in the early-modern world, diaspora and Empire, and the diaspora in the age of nation states. The second part of the Handbook centres on politics, culture and identity in the South Asian diaspora, thus offering the reader an overview on transnational politics and economics, culture in the diaspora and the socio-cultural impact of the South Asian diaspora on the countries where they have settled.

This much needed and pioneering venture provides an invaluable reference work for students, scholars and policy makers world wide interested in South Asian Studies.

Contents

Introduction David Washbrook and Joya Chatterji Part 1: The History of the South Asian Diaspora the Early-Modern to the Contemporary World A) Mobile South Asians in the Early-Modern World 1. Military Labour Migration 2. Mobile Artisans 3. Religion, Pilgrimage and Mobility 4. Indian Muslim Travellers in Arabia and Persia B) Diaspora and Empire C) Soldiers of the Raj: The Sikh Diaspora 1. South Asian Seafarers in War and Peace: Indian Lascars on British Ships 2. The Context for Colonial Migration from South India Indian Indentured Labour in South East Asia, the Caribbean and Africa 3. Women, Work and Marriage in the Diaspora 4. The Colonial State and Imperial Migration: The Indian Emigration Acts, 1839-1922 5. ‘Counterflows’ to Colonialism: Indians in Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries 6. Barriers to South Asian Migration: The ‘Whites Only’ Commonwealth and the Komagata Maru Affair C) Diaspora in the Age of Nation States 1. South Asian Migration to the UK and US and the New Immigration Policies 2. UK and US 3. Sri Lanka’s Diaspora 4. Twice-Migrants from East Africa 5. Bengalis in Britain 6. Pakistan Abroad Part 2: Politics, Culture and Identity in the South Asian Diaspora A) Transnational Politics and Economics 1. Gandhi and Indianness in South Africa 2. Radicalism Overseas: The Ghadar Movement 3. Long Distance Nationalism: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad 4. Transnationalism and the Transformation of ‘Home’ by ‘Abroad’: ‘Londonis’ and Sylhet 5. Kerala's Gulf Connection: Emigration, Remittances and Their Macroeconomic Impact 6. Stateless in South Asia: The MQM and Tamil Tigers 7. Terror and the Diaspora 8. India and its Diaspora: PIOs, NRI’s and ‘Pravesi Divas’ B) Culture in the Diaspora 1. Hinduism in the Carribean 2. Faith and Observance among British Pakistanis 3. Deobandi Islam in Pakistan 4. South Asian Diasporic Muslims, Islam and the post 9/11 World 5. Constructing Hyderbadi Community Abroad 5. Socio-Linguistics in the Indian Diaspora 6. Marriage and Marital Violence among South Asians in the USA C) The Diaspora Strikes Back 1. Diasporic Cities in Britain: Bradford, Manchester, Leicester, London 2. ‘Indian’ Food in the USA 3. Asian Gangs in London 4. ‘Legals’ and ‘Illegals’ in North America 5. South Asian Writers and the Conceptualization of ‘Diaspora’

Author Bio

Joya Chatterji was educated at the Universities of Delhi and at Trinity College, Cambridge. She taught International History at the LSE and she is currently a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University, and a Lecturer in History at Cambridge. In her research, she is concerned with communalism, borders, refugees, migration and identity-formation. Presently she is leading a large AHRC project on the Bengali diaspora.

David Washbrook is a Fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He was previously Director of the Indian Studies Centre and Fellow of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He specializes in the modern and contemporary history of India, especially southern India. He has also taught at Harvard and Warwick Universities and at the University of Pennsylvania and has contributed to numerous books and periodicals on South Asia, especially on Indian politics and development.

Name: Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora (Hardback) – Routledge 
Description: Edited by Joya Chatterji, David Washbrook. South Asia’s diaspora is among the world’s largest and most widespread, and it is growing exponentially. In 2001, the government of India estimated that 20 million persons of Indian descent live abroad; and many more millions have...
Categories: Asian Studies - Race & Ethnics, General Reference, History of Race & Ethnicity, Diaspora Studies, Colonialism, Postcolonialism, Asian Studies, Asian Culture & Society, South Asian Studies, Asian History