A Global History of Repatriation: Migration, Mobility, and the Spectre of 'Return’ across the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean (1871-1973)
Dr Kalathmika Natarajan (Archaeology and History, HASS)
This interdisciplinary, multi-archival project will offer the first global history of the repatriation of over a million migrants in British colonial territories and Commonwealth nations ‘back’ to the Indian subcontinent in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It seeks to reframe the history of the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean migrations by going beyond the limits of methodological nationalism to centre repatriation rather than just outward (e)migration. Dr Kalathmika Natarajan (Exeter), working in collaboration with Dr Vineet Thakur (Leiden), Dr Kalyani Ramnath (Georgia), Dr Antara Datta (Royal Holloway) and Dr Gajendran Ayyathurai (Göttingen), will trace the intertwined journeys of repatriates across South Asia, South-east Asia, South Africa, Guyana, and Fiji through the late colonial and postcolonial periods.
Through the expertise of its core research team in the fields of History, International Relations, Anthropology and Law, the project will provide a conceptual history of repatriation and interrogate its impact on diplomacy, citizenship, statelessness, sovereignty, and development. Drawing on Dr Ayyathurai’s critical caste studies agenda, the project foregrounds the intersections of caste, migration, and mobility and will utilise a range of source material in Tamil, Bengali, and Hindi to recover repatriate histories.
The SCI Development Fund aids this project at a crucial time, shaping an intensive two-day workshop in the summer of 2024, aimed at applying for the AHRC Catalyst Grant. It will also enable the dissemination of our research through creative, public-facing initiatives. While discourses about migration are increasingly polarised in both South Asia and the Global North, this project will shed light on the longstanding colonial histories that have shaped such responses to ‘undesirable’ mobility.. It will also historicise the role of caste in South Asian migrant and repatriate communities at an important time when there are ongoing international efforts to legislate against caste discrimination.
Dr Kalathmika Natarajan
Lecturer in Modern South Asian History, University of Exeter.
Dr Kalathmika Natarajan
Lecturer in Modern South Asian History, University of Exeter.
Dr Kalathmika Natarajan is Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at the University of Exeter. She is working on a book provisionally titled Coolie Migrants and the Making of Indian Diplomacy (forthcoming with Hurst), which recovers the ways in which caste, migration, and the regulation of mobility shaped Indian diplomacy. Her Modern Asian Studies article on the postcolonial history of the Indian passport received an honourable mention for the Best Article Award (2024) by the International Studies Association Diplomatic Studies Section. She is also co-editing a special issue on 'Caste and Diplomacy' for the Hague Journal of Diplomacy.
