Affiliation:
1. Centre for Development Studies, India
Abstract
This article takes issue with prominent ways of interpreting the cosmopolitanism often attributed to Kerala State, India. By virtue of its geographical location, from medieval times Kerala developed deep historical connections with European, Arabian, and South-East Asian societies. However in contemporary evocations of Kerala’s cosmopolitanism, the historical connections to South-East Asian societies are conspicuous by their absence. Caste Hindu legacies have been privileged implicitly in these and, as a result, hybrid communities can only be perceived as “miscegenated”. They are, therefore, excluded from the legacies of national culture. Johny Miranda’s recent novella Requiem for the Living (2013), tries to end this invisibility by articulating the present of one such community, the Parankis of Cochin. On the one hand, it both challenges and complicates existing identities such as the “Anglo-Indian” and the “Luso-Indian”, revealing their elite moorings and dualistic conception of hybridity. On the other hand, it departs from the long history of the implications of novel-writing in projects of caste-community identity construction in Malayali society. In doing so, it directs our attention towards the possibilities of unearthing “subaltern cosmopolitanism”, which may indeed be more appropriate for contemporary challenges in the specific postcolonial context that is contemporary Kerala.
Subject
Literature and Literary Theory
Cited by
12 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. Filmography;The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala;2024-03-28
2. Conclusion;The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala;2024-03-28
3. Introduction;The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala;2024-03-28
4. The Dead Ends and Alleyways;The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala;2024-03-28
5. Translating the Gulf;The Gulf Migrant Archives in Kerala;2024-03-28