Kala Pani Crossings, Gender and Diaspora by Misrahi-Barak, Judith; Tyagi, Ritu; Kalpana, H.;

Short description:

This volume explores the intersections of diaspora and gender within the diasporic and Indian imagination.

Long description:

This volume explores the intersections of diaspora and gender within the diasporic and Indian imagination. It investigates the ways in which race, class, caste, gender, and sexuality intersect with concepts of home, belonging, displacement and the reinvention of the nation and of self.

Positioning itself as a companion to Kala Pani Crossings: Revisiting 19th century Migrations from India’s Perspective (Routledge, 2021), the present book examines whether indentureship and diasporic locations marginalised women and men or empowered them; how negotiations or resistances have been determined by race, class, caste, or ethnicity; how traditional standards of Indianness and gender relations have been reshaped; how ideas of home, self and the nation have been impacted in the diaspora and in India after the 19th and early 20th century indentureship migration; and what 21st century Indians stand to gain by theorizing the legacy of 19th century indenture through a gender framework. To understand how fiction and non-fiction writers have negotiated the legacy of indentureship to create spaces where normative practices can be interrogated and challenged, the book gives pride of place to interviews with writers such as Cyril Dabydeen, Ananda Devi, Ramabai Espinet, Davina Ittoo, Brij Lal, Peggy Mohan, Shani Mootoo, and Khal Torabully.

Thus rooted in critical analyses but also in subjective and creative perspectives, this volume is a major intervention in understanding Indian indenture and its legacy in the diaspora and in India. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature, history, Indian Ocean studies, migration and South Asian studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Texts and Contexts: Rethinking Gender in Kala Pani Narratives PART I: Rethinking the Kala pani: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches 1. Revisiting Literary Studies of the Indian Diaspora: Possible Strategies for a Comparatist Approach 2. ‘The Sea is History’: The Concept of Space in Women’s Kala Pani Crossings 3. Women and Indenture: Revisiting Indian Discourses PART II: Past and Present: Revisiting the ‘Sexual Contract’ 4. ‘Intimate Violence’ and the ‘Sexual Contract’: Female Convicts and Marriage ‘System’ in Andamans, c. 1860-c.1920 5. Marriage and Man-Woman Relationship in Coolie Diaspora 6. Queer Diaspora and Hindu Rituals: Shani Mootoo’s Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab PART III: Voice and Vision Redeemed 7. Constructing Narratives on both sides of the Kala Pani: The Gendered Departee and Returnee in Firmin Lacpatia’s Boadour – du Gange … à la Rivière des Roches and K. Madavane’s Rue des Tisserands, Pondichéry 8. The Traces of the Silenced: Indian Indentured Women Labourers in Colonial Literature of the Réunion 9. Between Homes and Shores: Reimagining Her 'Silences' from Kalapani Crossings in Indo-Caribbean Poetry 10. Visions, Trances, and other Abnormalities of Indenture in Jahajin, The Swinging Bridge and Sea of Poppies PART IV: In Conversation with India: Memorial Narratives Inside Out 11. Popular Resolution of the Bhojpuri Women’s Question: Examining the Socio-Cultural Legacy of the Bidesiya in Select Bhojpuri Films 12. Remembering Mariamman PART V: In the Writers’ Own Voices Interviews with Brij V. Lal, Ananda Devi, Shani Mootoo, Peggy Mohan, Cyril Dabydeen, Davina Ittoo, Ramabai Espinet, Khal Torabully