Particularal Histories of Diaspora: Historical Archaeology on the Cormandal Coast

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology in South Asia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Trinidad, Gudeloupe; Suriname, and Jamaica; Maurituius, Reunion, Singapore and the Cape, Fiji, Singapore, malyasia and the Phillipines. All of these are places that share one apparent factor. South Asians, of multiple denominations, genders and castes circulated in the Indian, pacific, and Atlantic oceans as enslaved and indentured laborers employed in administrative, manufacturing, domestic, and agrarian contexts. While historians and archaeologists have begun to map this diaspora through material and textural sources, little attention, thus far, has been paid to the South Asian contexts that were home to the migrants, forced or otherwise. We ask the question, how did long-term histories of trade and land use form unique landscapes that structured social roles, economic relations, and their materialities of their expression? By examining the archaeological contexts from which some migrants came, we show that communities in the Diaspora were unique products of a distinct set of historical influences.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Historical Archaeology in South Asia   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology