Anglo-Indian Identity Past and Present, in India and the Diaspora

Revisionist in approach, global in scope, and a seminal contribution to scholarship, this original and thought-provoking book critiques traditional notions about Anglo-Indians, a mixed descent minority community from India. It interrogates traditional notions about Anglo-Indian identity from a range of disciplines, perspectives and locations. This work situates itself as a transnational intermediary, identifying convergences and bridging scholarship on Anglo-Indian studies in India and the diaspora. Anglo-Indian identity is presented as hybridised and fluid and is seen as being representative, performative, affective and experiential through different interpretative theoretical frameworks and methodologies. Uniquely, this book is an international collaborative effort by leading scholars in Anglo-Indian Studies, and examines the community in India and diverse diasporic locations such as New Zealand, Britain, Australia, Pakistan and Burma.

SECTION 1: HISTORICAL IMPACTS ON IDENTITY

Chapter 1. Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmans in the crucible of Decolonisation

Chapter 2. Which Eurasians May Speak? Elite Politics, the Lower Classes and Contested Eurasian Identity

Chapter 3. The Politics of Representation: The Rise and Growth of Anglo-Indian Associations in Colonial India Received

SECTION 2: GENDERED IDENTITIES

Chapter 4. Framing and Re-framing: Weaving Threads of Anglo-Indian (Hi)stories

Chapter 5. A Queer Encounter with Anglo-Indians: some thoughts on national (non)belonging

Chapter 6. Exercising Agency within Professional and Social Constraints: The Career Narratives of Anglo-Indian Women Employed as School Teachers in Bangalore

SECTION 3: IN LITERATURE AND FILM

Chapter 7. Perspectives on Anglo-Indian ‘Homing Desire’

Chapter 8. Mixed Feelings: Autoethnography, Affect and Anglo-Indian Creative Practice

Chapter 9. Fictionalised identities: Remodelling Anglo-Indians

Chapter 11. Daivathinte Vikruthikal: Homelessness and Fragmented Identities of Indo-French Families in Mahé, Post 1954

SECTION 4: IDENTITY IN THE DIASPORA

Chapter 12. Immigration Rhetoric and Public Discourse in the Construction of Anglo-Indian Identity in Britain

Chapter 13. The dilemma of Anglo-Indian identity in Pakistan

Chapter 14. Anglo-Indians of New Zealand: Identity and Diasporic Comparisons

Chapter 15. From Asansol to Sidney Terry Morris, Micro history and Hybrid Identity

Chapter 16. Is the Anglo-Indian ‘identity crisis’ a myth?

Robyn Andrews is Senior Lecturer in the Social Anthropology Programme at Massey University, New Zealand. She published Christmas in Calcutta: Anglo-Indian Stories and Essays (2014) and writes articles and book chapters for both academic and community publications. She is an editor of the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies.

Merin Simi Raj (PhD, IIT Bombay) is Assistant Professor in English at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Faculty Coordinator, Memory Studies Research Network IIT Madras (along with Dr Avishek Parui). She also works on Historiography studies and Digital Humanities, and recently completed a project on the Anglo-Indian community.