Migration, Displacement, and Identity Transformation in Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture

Abstract

This paper examines the interaction between migration, displacement and identity transformation in the context of the nineteenth and early twentieth century migration of Indians as coolies to the Caribbean and in the light of Gaiutra Bahadur's Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. It argues that indenture was not just a physical move, but a much more significant social and psychological change, which affected the caste, gender, memory and cultural identity of the people involved.  Based on a qualitative close textual analysis, it employs the interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks of ‘hybridity' (Homi K. Bhabha), ‘colonial discourse' (Edward Said), ‘subalternity' (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak), ‘transnational feminist' (Chandra Talpade Mohanty) and trauma studies. The analysis emphasizes the experiences of indentured women and explores the ways in which gendered violence, archival erasure and colonial exploitation intersect, while simultaneously elevating and recovering marginalized histories by engaging in a hybrid form of narration, drawing on memoir, archival research and imaginative reconstruction. The study also argues that becoming an indentured person is an ongoing, contestable identity construction that is influenced by force, life, opposition and cultural negotiation. The paper addresses women’s experiences and uses postcolonial, feminist and memory studies to illuminate the understanding of colonial migration and the development of Indo-Caribbean identity. It opens an argument for rewriting the mostly forgotten histories of indentured women.