Indenture wreathed in opium : Asian presence in the Caribbean : literary representations of Indo-Caribbean and Sino-Caribbean subjects from the 19th century to the present

• Main Author: Tumbridge, Mark
• Published: University of Warwick 2012
• Subjects: 972.9; PR English literature
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.560437

The 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed large-scale migration from Asia to various parts of the world, including the Caribbean, through the indentured labour system. My research will analyse representations of indentured labour and Asian diasporic presence in Caribbean literature. Firstly, focussing on 19th century journals, diaries, and other texts from the archive, I will analyse how Indian and Chinese subjects are represented. Following this, a similar analysis will address 19th-century literary representations of Asian subjects. Thirdly and in response to these foregoing analyses, this thesis will be concerned with how 20th-century authors renew and rejuvenate representations of indentured labourers and their descendants. The theme that runs through the thesis is death in its literal and symbolic sense. Throughout this thesis, I will pay close attention to the migrant's relation to the voyage, the sea (kala pani), and arrival in the Caribbean, tracing how these become symbolically important. The thesis will be concerned at each stage with tracing migrant transnational experience and identity; as such, the focus for some subjects is their identification with or relation to the creolisation process. Questions of gender and sexuality will also be important categories for analysis, as will religious beliefs, socio-cultural practices, and the use of vernacular forms. The structuring of narrative time and form within each work will be examined with the aim of revealing the ideological underpinning behind the texts and enabling a comparison. Some authors, such as Cristina García, examine Britain's global imperial presence and explore interdependencies and relations among various colonial structures and locations. In this respect, the connection between the indenture system and opium production, distribution, and consumption is analysed with regard to its affect on the representation of both Indian and Chinese subjects as well as the wider implications for Empire. Therefore, the representation of how events and agendas in Asia impact upon migration and the Caribbean experience will figure in my analysis of the subject as a contested site of multiple colonial histories and trans-local affiliations.