This book delves into the experiences of South Asia’s diaspora—originating from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Afghanistan—which constitutes one of the world’s largest and most globally dispersed communities. Over recent decades, millions of South Asians have migrated to regions such as the UK, North America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and increasingly the Middle East. Their children and grandchildren, forming the second generation, have grown up in these new societies, navigating education and entering the workforce. Despite being born and raised abroad, many still grapple with challenges of belonging, identity negotiation, and occasional discrimination, often being perceived as outsiders.
This book is essential resource for students, scholars, and researchers in migration studies, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. It explores broad subject areas such as transnationalism, acculturation, cultural hybridity, racism, and diaspora tourism, offering insights into the mental health concerns, resettlement challenges, and adjustment outcomes faced by this community. By focusing on South Asians as a transnational group, the book provides a nuanced perspective on the interplay between cultural heritage and contemporary global realities, inspiring further research and dialogue in the field.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.
By focusing on South Asians as a transnational group, the book provides a nuanced perspective on the interplay between cultural heritage and contemporary global realities, inspiring further research and dialogue in the field.
Introduction: In search of identity: perspectives from second generation
South Asian diaspora
Diotima Chattoraj and Anindya Basu
1. Struggles for identity formation: second-generation South Asian diaspora
overseas
A. K. M. Ahsan Ullah
2. Desis identity crisis in America: examining cultural and racial politics
in Samira Ahmeds Love, Hate and Other Filters (2018) and Sanjena Sathians
Gold Diggers (2021)
Hannah Ming Yit Ho
3. Floating notions of selfhood: interrogating cultural displacement across
generations in Jhumpa Lahiris The Namesake
Aparna Singh
4. Decolonising socio-political consciousness': second-generation LGBTQIA +
South Asian experiences of finding the self and community in Aotearoa New
Zealand
Cayathri Divakalala and Vinod Bal
5. Aligned and shifting identities in distant diasporas: a multigenerational
examination
Susan Banki and I. P. Adhikari
6. Renegotiating being Tamil post-Tigers: second-generation Tamils in
Germany
Thivitha Himmen and Eva Gerharz
7. Narratives shaping the perceptions of the second-generation Afghan
diaspora: is Afghanistan a militant, occupied and politically disordered
country?
A. K. M. Ahsan Ullah and Diotima Chattoraj
8. Beyond convergence, divergence and resilience: identity construction of
the second generation of the Bangladeshi diaspora in a globalised world
Nayeem Sultana and Md. Israt Rayhan
9. Hindutva, Hindu Diaspora and Communal Unrest in Leicester
Amit Ranjan and Dhimoyee Banerjee
10. Educating Indians, learning Indianness: navigating pluralistic
educational infrastructures in diasporic Singapore
Emma Grimley, Orlando Woods and Lily Kong
11. India diaspora in Western Europe: adapting and negotiating identity
Sheetal Sharma
12. Identity threat through the lens of heritage language maintenance:
second-generation Indian diaspora in Sydney, Australia
Ragni Prasad
13. The challenges of confronting racism as a social disease by
second-generation Indians in social and professional space in Australia: A
qualitative study
Neetu Kalra and Arumugam Seetharaman
14. Home away from home: negotiating a sense of belongingness among Punjabi
diaspora in Netherlands
Atinder Pal Kaur and Bhupesh Gopal Chintamani
15. Enculturation and ethnic identity: the second-generation Malayalee
diaspora in Ontario, Canada
W. Lijo Lal and M. S. Jayakumar
16. Certitude of belongingness: affective ties and changing politics of
identification within the Nepali community in Darjeeling, India
Nilamber Chhetri
17. Second-generation South Asian [ im]migrants: a new frontier of diaspora
tourism
Jannatul Ferdous
Diotima Chattoraj is a Research Fellow at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Nanyang Technological University. Additionally, she is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the department of Social and Health Sciences in James Cook University, Singapore. A qualitative researcher, she focuses on Asian migration, international relations, consumer psychology and advertising effects. She has authored more than 30 journal articles, 8 books, 14 book chapters in leading journals. Additionally, she is the Deputy Editor of South Asia Research, Associate Editor of South-East Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal and serves as a peer reviewer for several refereed journals.
Anindya Basu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Diamond Harbour Womens University. She has held this position since 2017, following her tenure as Assistant Professor at Womens Christian College, Kolkata, from 2011. A rank-holder in both her Bachelors and Masters degree programs in Geography at the University of Calcutta, she is also a recipient of the UGC-Junior Research Fellowship. Her academic interests span socio-political geography, urban-environmental issues, and tourism geography. Basu has successfully undertaken three sponsored research projects and has presented over one hundred papers at national and international conferences and seminars. She has also published approximately seventy research papers and book chapters. In addition to her research and teaching contributions, she serves as a peer reviewer for several refereed journals.
