Postcoloniality and patriarchy intersect to shape the lived experiences of Transnational Women of Colour (TWOC), producing layered marginalities across race, gender, culture, class, and status. In Australian academia, TWOC negotiate conflicting cultural, societal, and institutional expectations that influence their positionality, identities, and agency. As TWOC of Indian heritage, raised in Mauritius and India, our personal and professional lives are marked by colonial legacies and patriarchal structures, producing cultural dissonance and tensions. Drawing on duoethnography and reflexivity, we examine intersections and divergences in our experiences through Sara Ahmed's concepts of wilfulness and agency, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty's critiques of postcolonial feminist power dynamics. We analyse moments of resistance and disempowerment within Western-dominated academic paradigms that construct and maintain the 'Other'. By amplifying silenced voices and decentring dominant norms, our work contributes to critical conversations on imperial hierarchies and the need for greater recognition of TWOC in academia.
This paper undertakes a historical investigation of Tamil schools in Malaya, examining the periods of British colonisation and the preparation for independence between 1816 and 1957. In the context of Tamil schools in Malaya, there is a limited body of historical studies. Using qualitative historical methodology, we analyse primary and secondary data chronologically to examine the history of Tamil schools in Malaya. The outcome of this historical study is discussed in two sections: the early history of Tamil schools before the Second World War and the post-war period leading up to Malaya's independence in 1957. The study provides comprehensive information on the British government's approach and the plantation owners' attitude towards their labourers' children's education. The findings reveal important history on the Malayan Tamil school that needs to be acknowledged, as it had significant impacts on the future of Tamils in post-independent Malaya
This article introduces the special issue 'Indentured Indians: Past and Present'. It emerged from discussions held during two international seminars sponsored by Banaras Hindu University (BHU), India, and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), South Africa, on the Indian indentured diaspora. The recent focus on global history has influenced a rethinking of the nineteenth century labour migration from India to the various sugar plantations globally. Hence, both meetings focused on various aspects of indentured history, which has been studied inadequately. This special issue, in an endeavour to fill this gap in historiography, focuses on issues of indenture administration, caste, identity, dispossession, memories, music, religion, culture, nature, gastronomy, and returnees. Finally, it gives an alternative perspective on the history of indenture and highlights the lived experiences, the strength and resilience of these communities in the face of many challenges in host nations.
Hometown associations as sites of migrant transnationalism and diasporic identity formation have long held a significant place in diaspora and migration discourses. Hometown associations (HTAs) are localized spaces that cater to the immediate needs of migrants arriving in host countries from their hometowns. They hold crucial keys to understanding the manner in which diasporic networks are analyzed. Over time, hometown associations have paved the way for a digital presence, connecting the online with the onsite. In light of this, this study is interested in tracing the trajectories of the HTAs created by Indian migrants in Germany, which primarily emerge on social media platforms such as Facebook, but then also proceed to impact the onsite lives of migrants. Examined through the lens of long-distance nationalism, in this paper, we argue the following: first, hometown associations exhibit several fragmentations at the diasporic level; second, the transnational social media activities of migrants reinforce the homegrown social inequalities in the hometown associations that can be examined through 'digital othering'; and third, hometown associations are majoritarian spaces that reflect the majoritarian categories dominating the social fabric of the home country.
Through the lens of transnational feminism, this paper attempts to investigate the specificities of the Goan women's diasporic experiences and hybrid identities in Suneeta Peres da Costa's Saudade and Selma Carvalho's Sisterhood of Swans. Goa holds a distinctive position among Indian states, not only because of its Portuguese colonial past, but also because of its continued association with that legacy. Goan identity is often perceived as distinct and resistant to being subsumed within the liberated, albeit uniform, identity accorded to it after liberation. Given these imperialist constructions, it is essential to understand how conflicts between local, national, and diasporic identities are ascribed to the bodies of Goan women occupying varied spatial locations and their processes of homing. This paper offers an inquiry into these hyphenated existences from the perspectives of second-generation immigrant women authors.
This special issue explores the identity transmission among second-generation South Asians in diaspora, examining whether they retain South Asian cultural traits or adopt identities from their countries of residence. It addresses challenges like rootlessness among those with multiple migration histories, balancing risks of identity confusion with opportunities for cultural navigation. Through interviews with long-term diaspora members about their children and grandchildren, the issue delves into acculturation, resettlement, and identity development, providing valuable insights for migration studies and contributing to a deeper understanding of South Asian diasporas globally.
Most of the research studies about the Tamil diaspora do not address health, but rather focus on political and economic issues. Due to the ongoing disparities of health in Sri Lanka caused by the war, the Covid-19 pandemic, and economic crisis, it seems to be crucial to look at whether the diaspora actually tries to improve the health situation in their communities of origin. I analyse the health-related activities of the global Tamil diaspora organisations in various periods of the conflict in Sri Lanka: during wartime (1983-2009), the postwar period (2009-2020) and the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis (since 2020). I do that in the context of the broader worldwide Tamil diaspora, particularly in five main Western destination countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. The study reveals that the Tamil health diaspora runs different transnational health projects depending on changing political circumstances in Sri Lanka.
This essay explores the politics of curation and museumisation across two museum sites in India - the new Tibet Museum in Gangchen Kyishong, Dharamsala, and the Himalayan Tibet Museum in Darjeeling. It investigates the formative imperatives and epistemological assumptions that determine the 'types' of these two museums - the former as a site functioning as an extension of the TGiE, and the latter as a specifically Himalayan museum that remains mediated through its locus of production. I explore the processes through which the Dharamsala museum produces the idea of Tibetan identity and of an ideal exile subject, and the different axes along which such identity production hinges and unfurls. By comparison, the Darjeeling museum, I argue, does not serve any specific political function, and instead, draws upon and reinvents earlier British colonial anthropological models. It also seeks legitimacy from pre-colonial trans-Himalayan encounters and a set of living Buddhist practices across the Himalayas.
This paper explores how India-based Tibetan rappers ixx Tashi, Namgyal Nangmi, and Youns Bob translate their refugee experience into rhymes, offering an alternative to dominant national identity narratives in mainstream Tibetophone music and poetry. Tibetan rap, often overlooked in academia due to its hybrid nature, is approached here as a form of oral poetry to highlight both its inherited forms and innovative expression. Beneath themes of egoism and social critique lies a deep connection to place - be it Rabgyeling or cyberspace - revealing how identity is rooted in socially constructed spaces and the demand for authenticity. Through raw storytelling, these rappers expose the lived realities of exile, linking personal experience with collective aspirations. Positioned within broader media and academic discourses, and shaped by the glocalisation of the diaspora and nation-building efforts, Tibetan rap emerges as a platform for young cultural theorists seeking to strengthen community bonds and envision sustainable futures through accessible expression.
This article analyses how Tibetan adaptations to exiled life in Dharamshala have impacted Gaddis, a mixed-caste tribal community autochthonous to the region. Scholars have long considered how patronage, an enduring structure of Tibetan society, has been pragmatically extended in exile. Building off this observation, I analyse other socioeconomic adaptations and their impact on Gaddi neighbours. First, by imagining Gaddis as servants to the Demon-King Lutsen within the cosmology of oral epic Ling Gesar, Tibetans inadvertently exacerbated communal distrust. Borrowing from Marshall Sahlins, I frame this as a form of mythopraxis between two communities having unprecedented first contact in the 1960s. Second, the Tibetanisation of Dharamshala through spiritualised visual tropes of 'seeing' the geography, by both Tibetans and Tibet supporters, has elevated durable Buddhocentric motifs that obscure Gaddi lifeways. This leads to contestations over place names (toponomies), causing antecedent Gaddi names to be forgotten along with their ties to place-making mythologies and the Hindu character of the pastoral economy. Tibetan influence on regional Gaddi identity has both created ethnic resentment leading to periodic violence and injected new possibilities into what it means to be tribal in contemporary India.
While Bollywood's relationship with the diaspora has been addressed frequently, television's engagement with the community has not found sincere interest among scholars. By exploring a range of creative approaches that TV broadcasters employ to engage with the diaspora, this paper attempts to bridge the gap between scholarship on television and the diaspora. The paper examines three Hindi General Entertainment Channels - Star Plus, Zee TV, Colors, to understand how television imagines the diaspora. Through field interviews with industry experts, the paper argues that by addressing the diasporic community through diverse programming strategies, Indian television assimilates and reconstitutes the diaspora into the national imaginary. By including diasporic narratives in national programming, TV programmes serve as reterritorialised media objects that reconnect the diaspora to the homeland. The paper highlights that the transnational televisual exchanges between the nation and the diaspora signify the emergence of 'neo-global' media flows that perpetuate between media peripheries.
This article explores competing and changing narratives about the experiences of South Asian children in colonial East Africa. It studies the ways young South Asians engaged in discourses about race, nationalism and cosmopolitanism in a diasporic setting. Through disparate examples from young entrepreneurs to nationalist school children, it highlights the ways South Asian children navigated the temporal spaces between being children, young people and adults at the same time as navigating the geographical, social and political spaces between and through British India and colonial East Africa. It argues that greater focus on South Asian childhood in historical instances of diaspora deepens our historical understanding of colonial migration, long-distance nationalism, and mobility in the imperial era.
Diaspora studies have gained unprecedented prominence in academia. However, gender discourses within the diaspora studies remain largely unexplored. One such case is of South Asian diasporic women who are mostly 'victimised' in existing academic literature. This article provides a nuanced understanding of the lives of South Asian women in the United Kingdom (UK) by studying their evolving identity patterns over the years, which now seems to be less rooted in 'patriarchal victimisation' and more in the creation of strong, bold and independent identities for women. This qualitative study uses Feminist Epistemology to understand the changing reality of women, from women themselves. In doing so, the article aptly recognises the 'women and development' framework by analysing women's empowerment within the larger context of diaspora. Through the comparative and tabular analysis, the article brings a fresh perspective on the changing identities of South Asian women in the UK.
