Uprooting-Rooting: from India to the Caribbean Social, Cultural, Literary and Linguistic Repercussions
Déracinement-Enracinement : de l’Inde à la Caraïbe répercussions sociales, culturelles, littéraires et linguistiques
Published on Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Abstract
While the first indentured Indians arrived in the British-controlled Caribbean in 1845, where slavery was abolished in 1830 in the French territories, the first Indians did not arrive until 1853, since slavery was not abolished there until 1848. Although these two colonial nations (France and Great Britain) were political and economic rivals, when it came to preserving money matters and maintaining a hold on international trade, they were ready to come to terms to pursue “human trade” while naming it differently: indentured labour. The victims of this trade allowed themselves to be seduced by the false promises of recruiting agents in order to escape bad weather and its corollary, famine, but also misery, epidemics and the oppression of the caste system. In particular, they were attracted by the dream of returning home wealthy.
Announcement
Argument
While the first indentured Indians arrived in the British-controlled Caribbean in 1845, where slavery was abolished in 1830 in the French territories, the first Indians did not arrive until 1853, since slavery was not abolished there until 1848.
Although these two colonial nations (France and Great Britain) were political and economic rivals, when it came to preserving money matters and maintaining a hold on international trade, they were ready to come to terms to pursue “human trade” while naming it differently: indentured labour. The victims of this trade allowed themselves to be seduced by the false promises of recruiting agents in order to escape bad weather and its corollary, famine, but also misery, epidemics and the oppression of the caste system. In particular, they were attracted by the dream of returning home wealthy.
It was illusory for these men called coolies (payment), a word of Tamil origin corresponding to the sum you receive when you have completed a task. Exploited at will on plantations but no longer slaves, the Indians lost their gods, their sacred texts, their rites and rituals, their myths, their ways of dressing, of preparing food, their professional skills and craft guilds, their music styles and dance forms, their theatre. In short, their ways of life, their culture, their religion, their arts; they also lost their languages. Finally, they lost all hope of ever getting back home.
In the end, how did they manage to put down roots in such a foreign environment after their painful uprooting? After crossing several oceans, enduring physical suffering, but above all living with the trauma of the absolute prohibition for any Hindu to cross the kala pani, was there any other way out of their terrible fate but to try to adapt?
How could and would they settle?
Men had no other choice but to work in the fields, and there was no hope of any social mobility; women were confined to working for the “Bekes” in the kitchens and outbuildings and seen as objects of sexual desire. Nevertheless, some traditions endured and gradually adapted to the human and natural environment; some others died out, but progressively memory and intra-community exchanges have been worked out and have built up a mythical past. The uprooting was not final since it produced new offshoots in the Caribbean.
Papers may address the following topics (this is not an exhaustive list)
Papers may include:
- the social evolutions of Indian workers since their arrival and their role in contemporary society;
- intercommunity conflicts and other social issues;
- culture in general: religion and its local reinvention, all artistic forms (music, painting, performing arts, etc.);
- literature: all literary genres in vehicular languages of the Caribbean, the question of their diversity and of the perpetuation and transmission of the past – what past?
- linguistics: the question of the language(s) of expression and the role of translation in the dissemination of this new specific culture.
Article submission
A half-page abstract (in French or English; 400 words), as well as a short CV indicating your institution and a bibliography (three recent publications) should be sent to the following addresses to:
- Pr. Vidya Vencatesan: director.ces@mu.ac.in
- Pr. Christine Raguet: christine.raguet@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
before November 22, 2024 (deadline)
Please refer to the Guidelines for Authors before your submission.
Calendar (deadlines underneath)
- November 22, 2024: submission of summaries by authors
- December 20, 2024: authors will receive confirmation or not of their proposals
- February 21, 2025: receipt of articles and transfer to reviewers
- April 18, 2025: appraisal sent to authors
- May 18, 2025: authors send back their revised articles
- From June 2 to June 8, 2025: authors and editors proofread articles
- June 16, 2025: date of publication / issue published
Guest editors
- Pr. Vidya Vencatesan (University of Mumbai)
- Pr. Christine Raguet (Sorbonne-Nouvelle University)
Subjects
- Sociology (Main category)
- Mind and language > Thought
- Zones and regions > America
- Zones and regions > Asia
- Mind and language > Language
- Mind and language > Representation
Date(s)
- Friday, November 22, 2024
Keywords
- Inde, Caraïbe, social, culturel, littéraire, linguistique, déracinement, enracinement
Contact(s)
- Vidya Vencatesan
courriel : director [dot] ces [at] mu [dot] ac [dot] in - Christine Raguet
courriel : christine [dot] raguet [at] sorbonne-nouvelle [dot] fr
Reference Urls
Information source
- Hélène Wachtel
courriel : helene [dot] wachtel [at] univ-antilles [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .
To cite this announcement
Vidya Vencatesan, Christine Raguet, « Uprooting-Rooting: from India to the Caribbean Social, Cultural, Literary and Linguistic Repercussions », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12jlh
