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Migration, transnationalism, and modernity: Thinking of Kerala’s many cosmopolitanisms

This article claims that the history of modernity in twentieth-century Kerala is inextricably bound up with the histories of migration and transnationalism in the region. It argues that a distinction can be made between the earlier and later phases of the migratory and transnational experience. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: J Devika
Format: Printed Book
Published: Cultural Dynamics 2012
Online Access:http://10.26.1.76/ks/007981.pdf
Description
Summary:This article claims that the history of modernity in twentieth-century Kerala is inextricably bound up with the histories of migration and transnationalism in the region. It argues that a distinction can be made between the earlier and later phases of the migratory and transnational experience. The former allowed for the ‘cosmopolitanism of ideas’ that imagined hitherto-non-existent communities across cultural boundaries and ‘competing cosmopolitanisms’ in the region. Post-independence, however, altered political conditions that impacted migration and transnationalism and produced the ‘cosmopolitanism of duty’, which works with fairly fixed ideas about the national and community/family values and aims for flexibility in negotiating these worlds. These have had distinct effects on modernity in Kerala.
Physical Description:P. 127­–142 24(2-3)