The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 21, 2010) Thesis advisors: Dr. John Bullion, Dr. Michelle Morris. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Australian National University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 324-337).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

The study of Indian indentured servitude in the British Empire has largely been confined to the histories of slavery or free labor. Few scholars have connected indenture to larger processes in the British Empire. This dissertation examines the global nature of Indian indenture to find how trends in colonial power were inflected in the relationship between the state and the indentured worker. This dissertation uses the colonial experience in South Asia as a basis for its global history. It contends that the history of the colonial rule of law in the subcontinent was of deep importance to the mechanisms of indenture. By looking at archival records from the United Kingdom, Trinidad, Fiji, and elsewhere, this dissertation finds that officials in the indenture colonies were attempting to transform indebted Indian peasants into indentured workers. This process was inflected by the experience of colonial rule elsewhere. At first, this meant the implementation of ideas tied to imperial liberalism. Following the challenges to British colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, the indenture colonies mirrored a wider movement towards conservative governance. The ways in which the colonial state attempted to control and manipulate workers underwent a dramatic shift. In the indenture colony, colonial power exerted both authoritarian and paternalist tendencies. This dissertation uses the governorships of Arthur Hamilton-Gordon in Trinidad and Fiji to explore this shift. This dissertation makes its argument by focusing on the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. In doing so, it moves beyond the model of studying indenture that has looked at the British Empire as a whole, or otherwise in specific colonies or sub-regions. Using Trinidad and Fiji allows for a deep understanding of continuity and change. For example, Trinidad can be used to examine indenture’s beginnings, as the colony began to import Indian indentured labor in 1842, while Fiji can be used to understand late indenture. Furthermore, colonial officials, ideas of authority, capital, labor, and goods were always circulating throughout this global empire. The study of Trinidad and Fiji allows for a critical understanding of such exchanges and this dissertation uses both to explore bureaucratic offices, law, financial systems, governance, protest, medicine and health, and global agitation in Indian indenture. “The Currents of Restless Toil” is an in-depth study into the nature of colonial governance in the indenture colonies of Trinidad and Fiji. It explores the nuances of colonial power, providing a window into the theory and practice that shaped the restless toil of Indians across the world.

Many studies of indentured servitude in the eighteenth century have tended to characterize the labor system as fairly rigid. An examination of runaway indentured servant advertisements in the Maryland Gazette reveals several factors prompting a different conclusion. A comparison of runaway servants to runaway slaves demonstrates certain similarities and differences between these two groups and their respective labor systems. Much of the data obtained from the runaway servant ads and the above comparison suggest that indentured servitude was more flexible than has often been thought. / M.A.

The study details the transnational migrations of a sample of professional Indian women from Durban, KwaZulu Natal within the context of their historical transition from indentureship to transnationalism, and their changing social identities. The study makes a contribution towards contemporary interest in the subject of gender and migration in the 21st century. As the Indian and Chinese diasporas expand in size through knowledge workers and investments their increased visibility in countries throughout the world has led to a commensurate level of interest in resettlement and identity building. This dissertation deals specifically with Indian women in the South African diaspora and their transnational links with first world nations, particularly the United Kingdom. Chapter One is a brief history of Indian women in South Africa since their arrival as indentured labourers in 1860. It provides glimpses into their roles as mothers, wives and daughters in the patriarchal Indian household and their eventual transition into the professions. Chapter Two problematizes migration research in South Africa based on the inadequacy of national databases, specifically with regard to the invisibility of racial, gendered and occupational data pertinent to the context of international skills and professional migration. Chapters Three and Four deal with the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the fieldwork conducted as well as the research experiences and challenges of the anthropologist. Chapter Five, Six and Seven form the core ethnographic analysis of the women transnationals as single, married, divorced and widowed professionals. The rising number of Indian women transnationals of varying professional backgrounds, marital statuses and age groups leaving Durban since 1994 has led to the rapid transformation of the conservative Indian household. Their migration to first world destinations overseas signifies the impact of globalizing forces on the demand for professional skills from developing nations such as South Africa, as well as the increasing desire of the women to seek security, career advancement and independence in social spaces that are less repressive and more financially rewarding. Chapter Eight concludes the study by showing how the women are agents in their own emancipation and how identities within the duality of transnational migration have become a fluctuating terrain of negotiation and reconfiguration in their personal relationships and social practices. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

No description available.

No description available.

After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, South Asians were shipped to plantations across the Caribbean as indentured workers. Indentured servitude—a system of forced migration and labor—produced the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. The Madrasis (named after their port of departure, Madras, i.e., Chennai, but hailing from different parts of southern India) are a religious minority within the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. They cohere around the goddess Mariamman and practice healing, drumming, and spirit possession rituals associated with her. Displaced by indentured servitude, persecuted by the colonial state for their religious practices, and ostracized by the Indo-Caribbean Hindu majority, Madrasis bear the burden of an exceptionally difficult transcontinental history. Since the 1980s, they have been moving to the United States as migrant workers. New York has emerged as the North American center of the Madrasi religion and diaspora. To follow the Madrasis’ voyage across the dark waters of history and examine the role of religion in the making of the Indo-Caribbean Madrasi diaspora, I combine archival and ethnographic research conducted over the course of six years in New York, Guyana, and south India. Through archival work with maritime, missionary, and plantation records, I analyze how religion was employed as a category alongside race and caste to minoritize Madrasis. Through ethnographic fieldwork among Madrasi healers, drummers, and religious leaders in New York and Guyana, however, I demonstrate how the Madrasis themselves use religion in a very different way—to bear the burden of history. The Madrasis’ understanding of religion, history, and kinship, I argue, is shaped by their experiences of migration and creolization. From their diasporic position, the Madrasis imagine a transcontinental network of multibeing and multispecies kinship. They call this migrant network the “village.” This dissertation lies at the intersection of three geographical subfields in Religious Studies—South Asia, the Caribbean, and North America—and highlights the centrality of the study of religion to research on migration, diasporas, race, caste, and the environment.