Becoming Coolies: Rethinking the Origins of the Indian Labour Diaspora, 1772-1920.

Between the 1830s and 1920s over 1.3 million Indians migrated as indentured labourers to locations across the world. Criticised both at the time and since as a 'new system of slavery', this 'first wave' of Indian labour migration has been negatively portrayed as the cynical exploitation of a passive Indian labour force. Those who migrated have been presented as the victims of colonial coercion and dupes of unscrupulous middle men, who exhibited no role in the decision making process, and no influence over their individual or collective outcomes. As a result nineteenth-century Indian labour mobility has often been regarded as qualitatively different to, and disconnected from, a 'second wave' of voluntary, skilled Indian migration, beginning in the 1950s, which is often regarded as the 'legitimate' root of the modern day Indian Diaspora. This project sets out to dispute such assumptions by seeking to understand nineteenth-century indentured labour migration around the Indian Ocean in the context of a longer and more diverse history of Indian labour mobility. By situating indentured labour alongside the contemporaneous migrations of soldiers, slaves and service providers from the Indian subcontinent, it will explore the extent to which existing networks, connections and communities helped to shape the processes and experiences of indenture. Drawing upon previously misinterpreted or under-utilised resources in India, Britain, France, Mauritius, Réunion, Sri Lanka and South Africa - including the personal correspondence of migrants themselves - it will assess the degree to which indentured labourers were able to make conscious and informed decisions about if, when and where to migrate. It will also explore the ways in which migrant labourers in the Indian Ocean were able to improve their status and renegotiate real or imposed identities by moving between different categories of labour, and how far they could utilise kinship and other networks to take control of the sources of labour supply. Convict indents, emigration certificates, ship registers and migrants' letters will be used to suggest a broader and more varied movement of Indians overseas than has hitherto been realised. By tracing the vitally important continuities and interconnections between different forms of labour migration, and placing migrant agency, experiences and outcomes at the centre of the analysis, this project will explore the processes of migration in a way that goes beyond the reproduction of conventional colonial and nationalist tropes of indentured victimhood, exploitation and abuse. Instead it will offer a new approach to the migrant experience that seeks to understand the impetuses and consequences of migration from a subaltern perspective, opening up possibilities for radically reinterpreting the nature and importance of migrant agency in the early formation of the Indian Diaspora.

In rethinking the nature and origins of nineteenth-century Indian labour migration, the proposed research will be of interest to a range of non-academic users, such as: public history organisations interested in labour, migration, and globalisation; communities and interest groups concerned with the 'roots' of the modern Indian diaspora; and individuals tracing personal family histories. The project team will both build on existing connections with relevant communities, groups and institutions, and develop new links during the course of the project to bring their findings to a wide audience outside academia. They will be supported in this by a the Centre for South Asian Studies Scotland (http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk), the Edinburgh India Institute (http://www.edinburgh-india-institute.ed.ac.uk), and the University of Leeds' Arts Engaged programme, (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/homepage/343/impact_and_innovation).

Collaboration will be a key element of the dissemination and impact strategy, and will include public events (lectures/workshops), and the provision of informational materials (pamphlets, work sheets, display materials). A number of key partners have already been identified, including the National Library of Scotland, the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE, Hull) and Wilberforce House Museum, the Bernie Grant Arts Centre and Marcus Garvey Library (London). Discussions with local and national history societies will form an important ongoing part of the research process and will shape the nature of the impact activities undertaken. These will include the Thoresby Society (Leeds); The Raphael Samuel History Centre (London), the British Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA, London), Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE, Hull), Black History Month and the Historical Association.

The project's main non-academic output will be a public facing website hosting a range of resources. As well as a blog providing regular project updates, there will be primary sources, images, maps, contextual material, short articles, bibliographies, useful links and section specifically aimed at schools. The latter will contain 'discussion packs' suitable for use in a classroom setting, and ideas and guidance for micro-research projects.

An online database of names of labour migrants in the Indian Ocean will also be created. This will be suitable for use in genealogic research and will be publicised through specific Indian Ocean genealogical web groups such as 'Imaugen. Cercle de Généalogie Maurice-Rodrigues' (bilingual, English/French) and 'GenBourbon. Cercle Généalogique de Bourbon' (French), as well as by contributions to relevant threads and lists on websites such as www.ancestry.com.

The project will target particular media outlets relating to Diaspora Indians, such as Sunrise radio station and Mauritius Now radio, and newspapers such as Mauritius Now and Mauritius News, with whom Carter has established connections. Publicity for the project will be sought through the non-academic press, including the Sunday supplements of major newspapers, Times Higher Education Supplement, Times Literary Supplement, BBC History Magazine, History Today etc.

Given the resonances between this project and current debates about child labour, migrant labour contracts (e.g. in the Gulf) and people-trafficking, especially with regard to issues such as participation, agency and opportunity, the project's findings may also be relevant to public, NGO and governmental policy. Articles on www.historyandpolicy.org, and dialogue with organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery.org will explore this possibility.