Negotiating Hinduism in East Africa, 1860-1960

This paper describes how Hindus in East Africa developed from ‘South Asians in Africa’ to ‘Asian Africans’ between 1880-1960. It shows how the Hindu community in East Africa realised their own geographical spaces and areas of interaction. The various cultural encounters of Hindus traders and businessmen with African, Arab and European communities may have been economically profitable, but they harmed cultural pillars of Hindu identity, like notions of caste, purity, food habits and marriage patterns. Obviously, this was not a harmonious process, but one with conflicts in which painful decisions had to be made and legitimised. For others, however, it was an opportunity to free themselves from the burden of religious patronage. The research is based on the history of more than twenty Hindu Lohana families who have lived in East Africa for three generations or more

‘This Is Not a Problem but an Issue’:Chinese-Born Table Tennis Players Representing Another Country at the Olympics, 1988–2020

Table tennis was first included in the Olympic program at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. During the period 1988 to 2020, 811 athletes participated in the Olympic Games. Of these, a staggering 127 China-born table tennis players represented countries other than China at the Olympics. Collectively, these China-born athletes have officially earned these non-Chinese nations eight silver and seven bronze medals. Women have consistently migrated more than men. Did the number of China-born table tennis players who represent another country increase between 1988 and 2020, or was there a decline in numbers following the introduction of stricter eligibility rules in 2008? What are the major destination countries for China-born table tennis players? Through the life and stories of athletes, this study seeks to clarify that most of them obtained their new citizenship via ius domicilii and ius matrimony, meaning that they were naturalized through marriage or residency in their new countries. In short, we conclude that these athletes left China because of the extraordinary talent pool and their ambition to perform in an international event, such as the Olympics, in combination with existing diasporic migration corridors.</p

Settled Strangers:Asian Business Elites in East Africa (1800–2000)

Settled Strangers aims at understanding the social, economic and political evolution of the transnational migrant community of Gujarati traders and merchants in East Africa. The history of South Asians in East Africa is neither part of the mainstream national Indian history nor that of East African history writing. This is surprising because South Asians in East Africa outnumbered the Europeans ten-to-one. Moreover, their overall economic contribution and political significance may be more important than the history of the colonisers.This book is an attempt to provide some balance in the form of a history of the South Asians in East Africa through the lens of the actors themselves. It studies the kind of social, economic and political adjustments the emigrant Gujaratis had to make in the course of this migration. By using insights from the social sciences, including concepts like cultural capital, family firm, transnationality, middleman minorities and cultural change, this book aims to achieve a broader understanding of communities that do not belong to nations, yet are part of national states

Industrialisation in India, 1850-1947: Three Variations in the Emergence of Indigenous Industrialists.

In this paper I describe three patterns in the emergence of Indian Entrepeneurs Indian large scale industries, 1850-1930. While doing this I focus on three variables: (1) the colonial attitude towards indigenous business, especially the transformation towards large scale industrialisation1; (2) the religious, occupational and regional background of industrialists to be; and (3) whether or not they belonged to a ‘minority’ group. While these patterns all led to the successful entry of Indian businessmen into large-scale industries, they differ in the explainable importance to be attributed to the different variables. This paper starts with a description of the entry of Marwari businessmen into the jute industry in Calcutta. This will be followed by the success of the Parsi community in the cotton industries of Bombay and finally the story of the Hindu industrialists in Ahmedabad. In the final section, these three patterns of industrialisation will be compared

Gujarati Asians in East Africa, 1880-2000: Colonisation, de-colonisation and complex citizenship issues

Summary In this paper, I argue that despite the general belief to the contrary, there is a great deal of continuity in the history of the colonial and post-colonial practice of citizenship in the Indian Ocean region. This debate is usually described from the perspective of the state and its representatives. Indeed, more often than not, the position of the migrants themselves is not discussed. This paper aims to fill this gap. In the case of the South Asians in East Africa, I will demonstrate that migrants were able to negotiate their own space for identity formation and accepting and changing formal citizenship options. Indeed, they were also able to negotiate with colonial officials and, after the 1960s, Britain, Canada, India and even the United Nations about defending their rights as citizens or agreeing new regulations for international migration and citizenship. The debate on citizenship and belonging has become the centre of academic and public debate since the 1990s in Europe and the US. However, historical cases in colonial contexts might shed some light on long-term continuity in such discussions

Clothing Matters: Asian-African Businessmen in European Suits 1880-1980

Summary Asian businessmen in East Africa supplied goods, services and capital to African, Arabic, Asian and European customers, traders and other businessmen. In this complex cultural environment, they had to choose what to wear on any given what occasion. Expressing dignity, wealth, trust and reliability are key variables in making cross-cultural business contacts and building an appropriate image. When they arrived in East Africa between 1880 and 1920, Hindus and Muslims alike wore their own traditional attire, headwear and footwear, or no shoes at all. When they left Africa – around 1970- they wore a typical European business suit, including a tie and shined black shoes. In this article I explain the changing dress habits of Asian businessmen in East Africa as a result of –among others- the change in political environment from European colonies to African states, and the shift in economic preferences from dealing with India to dealing with Europe. Nevertheless, these factors should not be seen as a social economic structure imposed from above. This article shows that adopting a European dress style was a way to demonstrate an ability to modernise, move with the times. In the context of Asians in East Africa, it should be emphasised that European clothes are an indication of their „progressive‟ ideas, but must also be seen as a critique of their own culture

After Shaking his hand, start counting your fingers. Trust and Images in Indian business networks, East Africa 1900-2000

In this study I examine how ‘ethnic’ trading networks are created and recreated, but may also fracture and fall apart. This occurred among some Indian groups in East Africa, who initially strengthened their economic and cultural ties with India by maintaining intensive trade relations and taking brides from the homeland. However, after just one generation, their economic focus was on East Africa, Japan and the UK. Many of today’s well-off Indian businessmen in East Africa show little economic interest in India. In fact, Gujarati businessmen in East Africa created new, rather negative images of their counterparts in Gujarat. During the last century, their overall image of Indians in India was transformed from one of a ‘reliable family or community members’ to one of ‘unreliable, corrupt and, untrustworthy ‘others’