Transnational South Asians: The Making of a Neo-Diaspora

Transnational South Asians examines the interrelationship between South Asian diaspora and globalization. It shows how the international division of labor has been redrawn by labor migrations from South Asia, how paradigms of the 'brain drain' have been supplemented by new models of the 'brain circuit', and how the construction of new transnational public spheres has altered cultural flows between the developed and the developing world. The volume highlights how South Asian diaspora is of pivotal importance because the migration it encompasses spans the rise of global modernity. The essays look at the practices of political organization, civic participation, social networking, religious activity, cultural production and consumption, commemoration, celebration, marriage, sexual relationships, family organization, and economic activity through which displaced communities reconstruct themselves in displacement. They focus on diasporic subjects who have been overlooked, forgotten, misrepresented, or marginalized in the scholarship on the South Asian diaspora, such as slaves, women migrants, queer desis.