Book Talk [online] | South Asian Migrations in Global History: Labor, Law & Wayward Lives

South Asian migrants appear in most corners of the globe in the present day, from the cityscapes of Dubai and Singapore to the variegated landscapes of North America to the port cities of the Indian Ocean. What are the histories of the various migrations that originate in South Asia yet touch so many parts of the world? How do they relate to histories of globalization? Neilesh Bose’s edited volume South Asian Migrations in Global History: Law, Labor, and Wayward Lives explores how South Asian migrations in modern history have shaped key aspects of globalization since the 1830s. Including original research from colonial India, Fiji, Mexico, South Africa, North America and the Middle East, the essays explore indentured labor and its legacies, law as a site of regulation and historical biography. This book launch will include an overview of the book by editor Neilesh Bose, a discussion of the pivotal end of the indentured labor system in India by Riyad Koya, followed by a commentary by migrations scholar Arunima Datta, author of Fleeting Agencies: A Social History of Indian Coolie Women in British Malaya (Cambridge, 2020).

 

– Arunima Datta, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Idaho State University

– Riyad Koya, Independent Scholar, Santa Rosa, California

 

– Neilesh Bose, Associate Professor/Canada Research Chair, Department of History, and Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives Senior Fellow, University of Victoria