Globalization from Below. Circular Migrations between South Asia and Africa, c. 1850-2000 (GloBe)

• Applicant: Dr. Margret Frenz
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 370509563

Migration of people is a constituting element of the post-imperial and global worlds, and has attracted wide but asymmetrical historiographical attention. There are several imbalances: uneven attention to the different European Empires and border-crossings between them; a negligence to look across the "end of Empire(s)" and to consider the post-colonial implications of flows established in colonial periods; a preoccupation with imperial agency to the detriment of understanding the agency of other groups; a neglect of flows that are not merely to and from the metropolis, but which include migrations within and outwith any particular Empire; and a relative neglect to consider the implications of migrations for those left behind as well as those who migrate, i.e. to give voice to the experiences of the migrants and their social worlds. It is the aim of GloBe to put these themes at the centre of the analysis.GloBe compares multi-dimensional, circular migration movements of South Asians to East Africa, Mozambique, and South Africa. The focus on multi-dimensional, circular migrations movements provides a novel perspective in the study of migration history in the Western Indian Ocean which opens up comparative views on different types of migration movements, on flows of mobility across different empires and nation-states, and on social relationships between and among migrants and local populations. It is therefore of great relevance to analyse and understand circulatory migration movements between South Asia and Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. South Asia remained a reference point for South Asians living in Africa, and also was a place to which some migrants returned, or were travelling to on a regular basis to maintain their connections across the Western Indian Ocean. GloBe will investigate South Asian migrants to Africa, their historical trajectories, the continuities and transformations of their movements, as well as similarities in and differences between their migrations to different parts of Africa. It differentiates the various types of migration in order to create a novel understanding of circular migration movements between South Asia and Africa. Methodologically, the project involves consulting archives in three continents (Europe, South Asia, Africa) and weaving the analysis of oral history interviews with surviving South Asian migrants into my work. I will contribute new aspects to existing scholarship: on the circulatory character of movements; on intra-imperial connections within the British and the Portuguese Empires; on inter-imperial connections between the British and Portuguese Empires, and from the mid-twentieth century on, between empires and nation-states bridging the colonial and post-colonial divide.This Sachbeihilfe-application is meant to complement my Heisenberg-Programme application to cover the travel expenses for archival and field research and other costs during the period of research.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants