1Ms. Bhumika 2Raj Kumar & 3Sanjeev Kuamr, PhD
1, 2Research Scholar,
Department of History, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India.
3Professor, & HoD, Department of History, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21659/jsae/v3n1/v3n110
[Article History: Received: 15 April 2026. Accepted: 12 August 2026. Published: 05 September 2026]
Abstract
The Indian indentured diaspora to the Caribbean, formed through the movement of more than one million contract labourers between 1838 and 1917, occupies a central place in modern histories of migration, empire, and cultural transformation (Lal, 2000; Look Lai, 1993). Drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the “third space” and Stuart Hall’s theory of cultural identity as positional and historically produced, this article argues that Indo-Caribbean identity emerged through dynamic processes of hybridity, translation, and negotiation rather than through simple continuity with India or complete assimilation into the Caribbean (Bhabha, 1994; Hall, 1990). Situating Indian indenture in the aftermath of slavery, the study examines recruitment, oceanic passage, plantation discipline, and post-indenture settlement as the structural conditions under which new social worlds were forged in colonies such as Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname (Carter, 1994; Look Lai, 1993). It then analyzes how migrants created a third space through religious syncretism, linguistic change, kinship reorganization, gendered agency, interethnic relations, and literary representation, emphasizing that these were forms of cultural labour and resistance as well as adaptation (Das, 2007; Munasinghe, 2001; Persaud, 2011; Reddock, 1985). Particular attention is given to practices such as the Hosay festival, the reconfiguration of caste and family, and the representation of Indo-Caribbean life in fiction, which reveal hybridity as a creative yet conflict-ridden response to colonial power (Munasinghe, 2001; Naipaul, 1961). The article concludes that Caribbean indenture produced a historically grounded diasporic modernity whose legacies continue to shape postcolonial debates on identity, belonging, and cultural citizenship.
Keywords: Indo-Caribbean literature, Caribbean diaspora, hybridity, third space, religious syncretism, gender, creolization
