Diaspora and Cultural Negotiations: The Films of Gurinder Chadha explores critical and theoretical conceptualizations of identity, globalization, intersectionality, and diaspora, among other topics, in the films of Gurinder Chadha. This book argues that Chadha's work offers relevant and sensitive portrayals of the members of the diaspora community that make these films of contemporary and enduring value, highlighting their challenges in hybridization and acculturation in the societies they migrate to and the historical and political exigencies that influence their everyday existence. Contributors analyze Chadha's films in the context of cultural milieus including multiculturalism, narration and representation, ethnicity, literary adaptation, and intercultural negotiations, while also exploring Chadha's own role as an auteur. Scholars of film studies, Indian cinema, diaspora studies, sociology, and cultural studies will find this book particularly useful.

This anthology of essays, deliberates chiefly on the notion of locating home through the lens of the mythical idea of Trishanku, implying in-between space and homing, in diaspora women's narratives, associated with the South Asian region. The idea of in-between space has been used differently in various cultures but gesture prominently on the connotation of 'hanging' between worlds. Historically, imperialism and the indentured/ 'grimit' system, triggered dispersal of labourers to the various colonies of the British. Of course, this was not the only cause of international migratory processes. The partition of India and Pakistan led to large scale migration. There was Punjabi migration to Canada. Several Indians, particularly the Gujaratis travelled to Africa for business reasons. South Indians travelled to the Gulf for employment. There were migrations to East Asian countries under the kangani system. Again, these were not the only reasons. The process of demographic movement from South Asia, has been complex due to innumerable push-pull factors. The subsequent generations of migrants included the twice, thrice (and likewise) displaced members of the diaspora. Racial denigration and Orientalist perceptions plagued their lives. They belonged to various ethnicities and races, inhabited marginalized spaces and strived to acculturate in the host society. Complete cultural assimilation was not possible, creating layered and hyphenated identities. These intricate social processes resulted in amalgamation and cross-pollination of cultures, inter-racial relationships and hybridization in all terrains of culture-language, music, fashion, cuisine and so on. Situated in this matrix was the notion of Home-a special personal space which an individual could feel as belonging to, very strongly. Nostalgia, loss of home, culture shock and interracial encounters problematized this discernment of belongingness and home. These multifarious themes have been captured by women writers from the South Asian region and this book looks at the various aspects related to negotiating home in their narratives.

The Postcolonial Subject in Transit presents in-depth analyses of the complex transitional migratory identities evident in emerging African diasporic writings. It provides insights into the hybridity of the migrant experience, where the migrant struggles to negotiate new cultural spaces. It shows that while some migrants successfully adapt and integrate into new Western locales, others exist at the margins unable to fully negotiate cultural difference. The diaspora becomes a space for opportunities and economic mobility, as well as alienation and uncertainties. This illuminates the heterogeneity of the African diasporic narrative; expanding the dialogue of the diaspora, from one of simply loss and melancholia to self-realization and empowerment.

The genesis of the history of British colonization in India is often traced to traders, merchants, and the formation of the British East India Company. While this is indisputable, what is ignored is the creation and perpetual fueling of the steady stream of British officers into the Indian economy that happened due to the continuing efforts of British people and society. How did this ensue? In the contemporary world when we talk of the transnational terror networks we are filled with awe when we find children being engineered to the vocation of violence. However, this was true even of the earlier times when writers (albeit politely!) hid the colonial ideology within their literature. The children perhaps were tantalized by the beauties abroad, by the tigers, the rhinos, the 'native' Rajas! The use of animal imagery was conspicuous in such literature. This kind of narrative discourse was targeted not only at baby patriots but also at young adults, appealing them with adventurous stories of colonization in India. Through stories, museums, objects; the British children were continuously bombarded with knowledge of the colonies and its alluring bounties. These could be obtained only if the children would study them religiously, internalize the process of travel and looting; and actually reach the destination to perpetuate the imperial agenda. This book encapsulates the agenda of consciously training British children through underscoring resources and fauna in India pursued by the British society in the nineteenth century Victorian England.

Women's Human Rights in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture sheds light on women's rights advancements in the nineteenth century and early twentieth-century through explorations of literature and culture from this time period. With an international emphasis, contributors illuminate the range and diversity of women's work as novelists, journalists, and short story writers and analyze the New Woman phenomenon, feminist impulse, and the diversity of the women writers. Studying writing by authors such as Alice Meynell, Thomas Hardy, Netta Syrett, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Mary Seacole, Charlotte Bronte, and Jean Rhys, the contributors analyze women's voices and works on the subject of women's rights and the representation of the New Woman.

Women's Human Rights in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture sheds light on women's rights advancements in the nineteenth century and early twentieth-century through explorations of literature and culture from this time period. With an international emphasis, contributors illuminate the range and diversity of women's work as novelists, journalists, and short story writers and analyze the New Woman phenomenon, feminist impulse, and the diversity of the women writers. Studying writing by authors such as Alice Meynell, Thomas Hardy, Netta Syrett, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Mary Seacole, Charlotte Bronte, and Jean Rhys, the contributors analyze women's voices and works on the subject of women's rights and the representation of the New Woman.

The South Asian women's diaspora engages in spatio-temporal interactions and power differentials in a variety of narratives, articulating agency, multiplicities of belonging and culturally integrative practices, highlighting homing paradigms. The sense of alienness in a new homeland, rather in worldwide home places, triggers rethinking of diasporic conceptions and epistemes of individual and group histories, personal and collective experiences. Some of the questions that this anthology seeks to consider are: How do women from the South Asian diaspora represent cultural negotiations and alienness of the adopted homeland in various narratives? What are the themes/issues they select to portray their perceptions of foreignness? How do culture, history and politics intervene in their portrayal of lived experiences? How do they locate themselves in the matrix of foreignness and diaspora? The contributors to this anthology examine narratives depicting South Asian women, their complexly positioned voices, gesturing at the proliferating challenges and reflecting the grim realities of a globalized world.

The Postcolonial Subject in Transit presents in-depth analyses of the complex transitional migratory identities evident in emerging African diasporic writings. It provides insights into the hybridity of the migrant experience, where the migrant struggles to negotiate new cultural spaces. It shows that while some migrants successfully adapt and integrate into new Western locales, others exist at the margins unable to fully negotiate cultural difference. The diaspora becomes a space for opportunities and economic mobility, as well as alienation and uncertainties. This illuminates the heterogeneity of the African diasporic narrative; expanding the dialogue of the diaspora, from one of simply loss and melancholia to self-realization and empowerment.