EVENTS

Abstract

The Calcutta Chinese community is part of the wider Chinese diaspora which settled in the Indian sub-continent during colonial times. Calcutta is an important site for this relatively under-researched diaspora, as it is the only city in the region to have developed a close-knit ‘community’ structure through its networks of associations, schools and places of worship. Calcutta is also one of the few places where a sense of ‘community’ remained after the 1962 Sino-Indian conflict, which affected the lives of Chinese Indians at various levels. Large-scale migration of the community ensued to several places, but most notably to Toronto, where Hakka members of the community have regrouped. This talk will focus on how neighbourhood spaces in the city influenced a Calcutta Chinese identity. Drawing in particular on the connections of the community with another minority community in Calcutta – the Anglo-Indians, the talk will trace the everyday practices of carving a sense of belonging in the city that cut across community boundaries. Whilst wider literature has focused on Chinatowns as visual representations of the presence of Chinese communities, this presentation will outline the need to look beyond Chinatowns in researching cosmopolitan connections in urban spaces.

About the Speaker

Jayani Bonnerjee is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. Her PhD (from Queen Mary, University of London) focused on the Calcutta Chinese and Anglo-Indian communities, and was funded by The Leverhulme Trust as part of the ‘Diaspora Cities’ project.  Jayani has been a Visiting Research Fellow (2010) at the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, ISEAS, Singapore and has taught at Loreto College (Calcutta) and Queen Mary University of London. She has published her work in Global Networks, South Asian Diaspora and Journal of Intercultural Studies. Her areas of interest include postcolonial urbanism in South Asia and critical geographies of diaspora.