Gender Negotiations among Indians in Trinidad 19171947 [Hardcover]

This book is about the struggles of female and male descendants of Indian indentured migrants in Trinidad in the first half of the twentieth century, each desiring to preserve some aspects of the gender system brought from India between 1845 and 1917, which were important to their continued definition of ethnic identity and community in Trinidad. At the same time the situation of migration allows for challenges to the caste system of Hinduism and, for women and some men, new opportunities to confront the more restricting aspect of Indian patriarchy which followed them across the seas from India.List of Tables List of Figures Glossary Acknowledgements Introduction Crossing the Black Water: From India to Trinidad, 1845-1917 Gender in the Definition of Indian Identity in Trinidad Gender Dynamics in the Making of Community The Reconfiguration of Masculinity and Femininity: Negotiating with Myth and Symbols Renegotiating Sexuality Family, Marriage and Love The Troubled Legacy of History and Love Notes Bibliography IndexPATRICIA MOHAMMED is Head of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at the University of West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. She has published extensively on gender and feminist studies and is co-editor of Gender in Caribbean Development and co-author with Althea Perkins of Caribbean Women at the Crossroads.