Synopsis
Given the range, intensity and magnitude of contemporary transnational migrations, it seems entirely appropriate to designate this world on the move as comprising, from our point of view, of Indian transmigrants. The movement and global adaptations of this population are spread beyond single home and host societies to multiple locales both vertically and horizontally. Ravindra Jain s empirical studies in this book radiate from the vicissitudes of migrants from India to Malaysia on to those in the Caribbean and further on to Australia. The spectrum of globalization in our times necessitates comparisons over still larger territories; therefore, while focusing on particular Indian transmigrants, East and West, Jain s perspectival vision encompasses the entire field of modern Indian diaspora. As a pioneering and singularly wide-ranging narrative of the diaspora, based primarily on the author s fieldwork, this book unravels facets of socio-cultural pluralism, hybridization, ethnic movements, politico-economic mobility and global modernity over a vast territory. The rich ethnographic detail is interleaved throughout with acute analysis and interpretation. The methodology adopted here invites comparisons over a still wider terrain and is therefore of immense relevance to all students of globalization, international migration, socio-cultural transformation and political economy in the new millennium, with special reference to the Asia-Pacific region.
About the Author
Educated at Lucknow University and the Australian National University, Canberra, Ravindra K. Jain taught social anthropology and sociology at Oxford (1966-74) and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1975-2002) besides holding research and teaching positions in many other parts of the world. His major publications include: South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya, Yale University Press and University of Malaya Press, 1970; (Editor) Text and Context: The Social Anthropology of Tradition, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia, 1977; Indian Communities Abroad: Themes and Literature, Manohar, New Delhi, 1993; The Universe as Audience: Metaphor and Community among the Jains of North India, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, 1999; Between History and Legend: Status and Power in Bundelkhand, Orient Longman, Delhi and Hyderabad, 2002.
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