Abstract
The Indian Diaspora has varied historically and is quite heterogeneous in various ways. There has always been an outward-bound movement of people from India, but in the last century particularly, there has been a large-scale displacement of people that has resulted in Indians being the second largest diaspora in the world, spread across 180 countries. But under the general rubric of diaspora studies, the understanding of the ‘women’ of the diaspora, as a subject of analysis stands marginalised, if not neglected. Along with the general experience of displacement and homelessness, women tend to also experience conflicting and contrasting subjectivities of freedom and subjugation. This paper attempts to explore the subjectivity of women between these extremes. The new places offer a wide variety of experiences and exposures, with some elements of familiarity and strangeness, a bit of continuity and a degree of change. What are the areas, the aspects and the ways in which they find themselves free in the new geography, as compared to what the situation was in their native place? At the same time, what are the burdens and the restrictions faced by women—who are have the responsibility of maintaining and retaining cultural values and identity—in the new homeland. Standing between the two worlds with opposing sets of expectations—how do women reconcile themselves, or face the conflict and attempt to cope with it. How do they move on from one world of ontological security to constitute a new one?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
‘Diaspora’ originally referred to major historical migrations, such as the scattering of the Jews from Israel. Although the term refers to the physical dispersal of Jews throughout the world, it also carries religious, philosophical, political, and eschatological connotations, in as much as Jews perceive a special relationship between the land of Israel and themselves. The term ‘diaspora’ comes from the Greek, which means scattered or dispersed. Some other instances include the colonial expansion of the Greeks, the removal through slavery of millions of Africans, and the exile of Armenians following massacres by the Turks in the early twentieth century (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/diaspora and http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/161756/Diaspora).
- 2.
Castles and Miller (1998).
- 3.
Caritas Paper page 2.
- 4.
Ahmad (2003), p. 45.
References
Ahmad, F. 2003. Dilemmas, Tensions and Contradictions in Theorizing South Asian Muslim Women. In South Asian Women in the diaspora, ed. Nirmal Puwar, and Parvati Raghuram. Oxford: Berg.
Anderson, K., and D.C. Jack. 1991. Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and Analyses. In Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History, ed. S. Berger Gluck and D. Patai, p. 11–26. New York: Routledge.
Bhatia, Sunil. 2007. American Karma: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora. New York: NYU Press.
Bhattacharjee, A. 1992. The Habit of Ex-nomination: Nation, Woman, and the Indian Immigrant Bourgeoisie. Public Culture 5(1): 19–44.
Brubaker, R.W. 2005. The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (1): 1–19.
Buijs, Gina (ed.). 1993. Migrant Women: Crossing Boundaries and Changing Identities. Oxford: Berg.
Caritas Europa. 2009. The Social Costs of Labour Migration, Caritas Europa Migration Forum, September 17–19. www.caritas.org/includes/pdf/backgroundmigration.pdf. Retrieved December 10, 2014.
Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller, 1998. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. In The Feminisation of Migration: Dreams and Realities of Migrant Women in Four Latin American Countries, by Cecilia Lipszyc. 2004. The Guilford Press: New York.
Clifford, J. 1994. Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology 9 (3): 314.
Couldry, N. 2006. Culture and Citizenship: The Missing Link? European Journal of Cultural Studies 9 (3): 321–339.
Dasgupta, Shamita Das. 1998. A Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles of South Asian Women in America. London: Rutgers University Press.
Faist, T. 2004. Towards a Political Sociology of Transnationalization. European Journal of Sociology 45 (3): 331–366.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-identity. Self and Society in Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jain, Shobhita. 2006. Women’s Agency in the Context of Family Networks in Indian Diaspora. Economic and Political Weekly June 10: 2312.
Jain, Shobhita. 2010. Transmigrant Indian Women: Creators of Diasporic Spaces. Journal of Social Sciences 25(1–2–3): 51–57. http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JSS/JSS-25-0-000-10-Web/JSS-25-1-2-3-000-10-Abst-PDF/JSS-25-1-3-051-10-1150-Jain-S/JSS-25-1-3-051-10–1150-Jain-S-Tt.pdf. Accessed 12 Dec 2014.
Mani, L. 1994. Gender, Class, and Cultural Conflict: Indu Krishnan’s ‘Knowing her Place.’ In Our feet Walk the Sky, ed. South Asian Women’s Descent Collective, p. 32–36. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Press.
Pandurang, Mala. 2003. Conceptualizing Emigrant Indian Female Subjectivity: Possible Entry Points. In South Asian Women in the Diaspora, ed. Nirmal Puwar, and Parvati Raghuram. Oxford: Berg.
Ramusack, Barbara N. and Sharon L. Sievers. 1999. Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History. US: Indiana University Press.
Rydin, Ingegerd and Ulrika Sjöberg. 2010. Women in Diasporic Communities Tell Their Stories: a Generational Perspective. Paper presented at Migra Nord Seminar, Helsinki, Sept 1–3. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:439521/FULLTEXT01.pdf. Accessed 12 Jan 2015.
Sharma, Sheetal. 2013. Immigrants in Britain: a Study of the Indian Diaspora. Diaspora Studies 5(1): 14–43. New Delhi: Organisation for Diaspora Initiatives.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sharma, S. (2018). Freedom or Subjugation: Interpreting the Subjectivity of Women in Indian Diaspora Communities. In: Pande, A. (eds) Women in the Indian Diaspora. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5951-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5951-3_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5950-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5951-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)