Call for Book Chapters   

Routledge Handbook

Globalising Indian Home: Translation, Migration, Gender, and Identity

About the Book

The proposed book aims to theorise the concept of the ‘Indian home’ across geographical boundaries, the struggle of Indian immigrants to make their home their own and their attempt to integrate the Indian household into global cultural space. The home away from the homeland converges and diverges across multiple geographical spaces and temporalities. This book aims to examine the process in which the migrant transforms a ‘place’ into the familiar space of a ‘home’. Indians have migrated and formed communities all across the globe, including Europe, USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and the Middle East. These Indian immigrant communities have formed their own alternate culture, as they travelled/translated from source culture/language to target culture/language. These migrants or ‘translated beings’ challenge the universal concept of the home rooted in the homeland, by enrooting to new homes, in search of a better life. The steady increase in the migration of Indian women over the last few decades, has changed gender roles and family dynamics, resulting in the restructuring of the Indian household. The change in gender patterns of Indian immigrants in both internal and international migration, has led to Indian women finding themselves in roles where they are in charge of creating the ‘Indian home’ across regional and national borders. Global crises such as Covid-19, climate change and economic depressions, has resulted in Indian immigrants becoming not only economic migrants, but also environmental migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The role of the ‘home’ as a safe space in such uncertain times becomes more significant than ever.

Themes and Sub-themes

1. Indian Home and Globalisation

What makes a place ‘home’? What is an ‘Indian home’?

Globality, the nation-state and the homeland

Global cities and the Indian home

Cultural globalisation and the Indian home

The role of technological globalisation in the Indian home

2. Indian Home and Migration

Rural-urban migration and the changing Indian home

International labour migration and the Indian household

The process of building a home for climate migrants

Covid-19 as a global disease and the new role of home

Return migration and the home-making process

3. Indian Home and Translation

Role of language and education as cultural capital 

Mother tongue and Foreign languages in the lives of Indian diasporas

Role of translation in re-creating ‘Indian Homeland’ in a global context

Translation as a linguistic transaction in multilingual Indian homes

Translation as a cultural exchange in global Indian homes

4. Indian Home and Gender

The feminisation of migration and its effect on the household structure

The role of the woman as the safekeeper of culture

The rise in female labour migrants changing Indian home dynamics

Changing gender roles in global Indian homes

Women refugee rights, empowerment through activism and refugee homes

5. Indian Home and Identity

Building a global identity vs being identified as a migrant/citizen

The idea of a home and citizenship

Understanding the regional, caste, religious and linguistic identity in a global Indian home

The migration of caste as a socio-psychological construct and its influence on global thinking

Lives of marginalized immigrants and upper-caste communities in a multiracial society

6. Indian Home and Narratives

Historical narratives of Indian immigrant communities

Autobiographies and stories of Indian immigrants as global narratives

Media narratives of Indian immigrants

Understanding the personal, social and political lives of Indian immigrants

Memories, illusions and disillusionments of the home in return immigrants

Submission Guidelines

An abstract of 300-500 words along with a bio note not exceeding 100 words should be submitted by filling up this form, https://forms.gle/4zcPuxNGbZa7AHNP7, by December 30, 2024. All potential contributors can also submit a full manuscript. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the Editors, Dr. Rajkumar Eligedi (rajkumar@efluniversity.ac.in) and Irram Irfan (globalisingindianhome25@gmail.com).

IMPORTANT DATES

• Deadline for abstracts: December 30, 2024
• Notification of abstract acceptance: February 28, 2025

Editors

Dr. Rajkumar Eligedi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Literature, School of Literary Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. He is the Deputy Dean, Students’ Welfare and MA English Literature Programme Coordinator. He worked as an Assistant Professor in English at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia for six years. A DAAD fellow, he contributed to Routledge's Handbook on Translation, Feminism and Gender, Translation Today, and coordinates international conferences on English Studies.

Irram Irfan is a PhD Research Scholar in the Department of English Literature, School of Literary Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. She is a Teaching Assistant and Course Coordinator for NFCAR Courses at The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She has previously worked at ‘The Migration News’, GRFDT and at the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru. She has been published by Muse India and Cambridge Scholars’ Publishing. She has presented her research papers on Migration Literature and Performance Studies, in several international conferences including those organised by DAAD, MHRD-SPARC, and BASAS.