Manuela Latchoumaya
Indo-Caribbean groups, who settled in the Caribbean via the colonial system of Indian indentured labour, have long been marginal in discussions of diaspora and Caribbeanness. This paper explores how Indo-Guadeloupeans-from Guadeloupe, a current French overseas territory-articulate post-indenture identities by developing two interrelated concepts-Archipelagic Connections and Archipelagic Brown Consciousness. In doing so, it offers a novel theorisation of diasporic relationality as rooted in the place of (re)settlement while simultaneously looking towards other sites connected by past and present overlapping, cross-imperial histories and geographies. Drawing on 10 biographical interviews with Indo-Guadeloupeans, I argue that participants: unsettle essentialist definitions of Indianness by articulating a version of Indo-Caribbean Hinduism that foregrounds Archipelagic Connections across religion and generations (1); and mobilise Archipelagic Connections across 'race' and imperial formations to claim space within Caribbeanness (2). By conceptualising Archipelagic Connections and Archipelagic Brown Consciousness, this article argues for moving beyond the colonial, historiographic and linguistic fragmentation of the Caribbean region.