1st Edition

Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora

Edited By Joya Chatterji, David Washbrook Copyright 2013
    448 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    448 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    South Asia’s diaspora is among the world’s largest and most widespread, and it is growing exponentially. It is estimated that over 25 million persons of Indian descent live abroad; and many more millions have roots in other countries of the subcontinent, in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There are 3 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.

    Now available in paperback, 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 is split into five main sections, with chapters looking at mobile South Asians in the early modern world before moving on to discuss diaspora in relation to empire, nation, nation state and the neighbourhood, and globalisation and culture.

    Contributors highlight how South Asian diaspora has influenced politics, business, labour, marriage, family and culture. This much needed and pioneering venture provides an invaluable reference work for students, scholars and policy makers interested in South Asian Studies.

    Introduction Joya Chatterji and David Washbrook Part 1: Mobile South Asians in the early modern world  1. The world of the Indian Ocean David Washbrook 2. The market for military labour in early modern north India Dirk Kolff 3. Scribal migrations in early modern India Rosalind O’Hanlon 4. Mobile artisans Tirthankar Roy and Douglas Haynes 5. Hawala and Hundi: vehicles for the long-distance transmission of value Roger Ballard Part 2: Diaspora and empire  6. South Asian business in Empire and beyond Claude Markovits 7. Indenture: Experiment and Experience Brij Lal 8. Wrecking homes, making families: Women’s recruitment and indentured labour migration from India Samita Sen 9. The age of the lascar. South Asian seafarers in the times of imperial steam shipping Ravi Ahuja 10. South Asians in Britain up to the mid-nineteenth century Michael Fisher 11. Warriors, workers, traders, and peasants: The Nepali/Gorkhali diaspora since the nineteenth century David Gellner Part 3: Diaspora and nation  12. Seeking empire, finding nation: Gandhi and Indianness in South Africa Isabel Hofmeyr 13. South Asian migration to the United States: Diasporic and national formation Sandhya Shukla Part 4: Diaspora, nation states and the neighbourhood  14. From imperial Subjects to national citizens: South Asians and the international migration regime since 1947 Joya Chatterji 15. The production of illegality in migration and diaspora: State policies and human trafficking from Pakistan Ali Nobil Ahmad 16. Out of India: Deobandi Islam, radicalism and the globalization of ‘South Asian Islam’ Magnus Marsden 17. Nationalising a diaspora: The Tibetan government-in-exile in India Fiona McConnell 18. Sri Lanka’s diasporas Nicholas Van Hear Part 5: Diaspora, globalisation and culture  19. Brain Drain, exchange and gain: ‘Hi-skill’ migrants and the developed economies David Washbrook 20. Transnationalism and the tranformation of ‘home’ by ‘abroad’ in Sylhet, Bagladesh Katy Gardner 21. Indians abroad: Mixing it up Karen Leonard 22. Bengalis in Britain: Migration, state controls and settlement John Eade 23. The Pakistani Diaspora: US and UK Yunus Samad 24. Hinduism in the diaspora John Zavos 25. Ritual, religion and aesthetics in the Pakistani and South Asian Diaspora Pnina Werbner 26. Europe’s Muslim passions Fasial Devji 27. Diasporic cities in Britian: Bradford, Manchester, Leicester, London William Gould 28. Dis/Locating diaspora: South Asian youth cultures in Britain Claire Alexander and Helen Kim 29. Dress and the South Asian diaspora Emma Tarlo 30. Marriages of convenience and capitulation: South Asian marriage, family and intimacy in the Diaspora Perveez Mody 31. Literatures of the South Asian Diaspora Ananya Kabir 32. Indian food in the USA: Adapting to culinary eclecticism Jayanta Sengupta 33. Bollywood’s Empire: Indian Cinema and Diaspora Rachel Dwyer

     

    Biography

    Joya Chatterji is Reader in Modern South Asian History at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow of Trinity College. Her publications include Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition 1932–947 (1995), The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-67 (2007) and co-author of The Bengal Diaspora (forthcoming 2013, Routledge). She is also the editor of the journal Modern Asian Studies.

    David Washbrook is Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK, and he has previously taught at Warwick, Harvard and Oxford Universities and the University of Pennsylvania. His major interests lie in the societies and cultures of southern India on which he has published extensively.

    "The volume would be useful both as a reference and as an introduction to the topics at hand to upper-level undergraduate students, postgraduates, as well as more advanced researchers, without being overly general and dry. The 33 chapters of the handbook are successful in providing compelling evidence to support certain key arguments concerning the conceptualisation of diaspora through the lens of South Asian mobilities. This reader therefore highly recommends the volume."
    Esther Rootham, National University of Singapore
    Asian Journal of Social Science 43 (2015) 847–849