Multiple Homemaking

This book develops a theoretical perspective on homemaking as the ethnic condition of Indian diaspora communities. It draws on empirical case studies to elucidate the multiple homemaking practices of two overseas Indian groups and their relations to their homeland, namely the Surinami Hindustanis and the Dutch Hindustanis. In doing so, it provides a new perspective on homemaking that captures ethnogenesis, integration and diasporic bonding at once. As opposed to the extant discourse on homemaking which overlooks institutional and cultural requirements, the author makes a point to scrutinise such concepts as douglarisation, groupism, citizenship, institutions, ethnification, social networks and technology, and transnational flows. Unique and compelling, the book will be highly useful in studies of diaspora, globalisation and transnational migration, multiculturalism, cultural studies, ethnic minority studies, sociology, politics and international relations, and South Asian studies.

Ruben Gowricharn is Professor of Indian Diaspora Studies at the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on diasporas, democracy and the integration of ethnic minorities. He has edited several books including Shifting Transnational Bonding in Indian Diaspora (2020) and Political Integration in Indian Diaspora Societies (2020). He is also the managing director of a doctoral program for adult migrant students in the Netherlands and Suriname.

1. Introduction: The Issue of Immigrant Homemaking 2. British Indian Ethnogenesis: Their Historical Homemaking in the Caribbean 3. Ethnicity and Political Integration: Making the Political Home 4. Homemaking by Douglarisation? 5. Institutional Homemaking of Dutch Hindustanis 6. Second-Generation Transnationalism 7. Technology, Social Networks and Culture of Young Hindustanis 8. Shopping in Mumbai: Transnational Homemaking