Across Seven Seas And Thirteen Rivers

Beyond Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers is a serio-fiction based on a hundred years old true story and the fictional story of a Naxalite rebel of the seventies of last century. The true story is about a man who lived in the nineteenth century and rebelled against the restrictive life of the society at that time and used to dream about distant foreign lands and adventures, stimulated by stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata. He left home as a teenager and through many adventures in the lands unknown became a renowned soldier and officer in the Brazilian Republican Army. His sketchy biography was published in a Bengali book at the turn of the century, 1899-1900, but nothing is known about him afterwards except that he died in Brazil in 1905. Born in the same year as Rabindra Nath Thakur and two years before Swami Vivekananda he remained an icon and an enigma, the only heroic-romantic character at the dawn of Indian renaissance. The fictional Naxalite rebel of the seventies also had to leave the country after many adventurous escapes, true events in the life of many young men, and reached Brazil and came to know about his predecessor a hundred years back and started searching for him. That changed his life bringing forth many perennial issues of man and society.

In this path-breaking study, social economist Naila Kabeer examines the lives of Bangladeshi garment workers in Bangladesh and Britain to shed light on the question of what constitutes "fair" competition in international trade. She argues that if the unhealthy coalition of multinationals and labor movements is truly seeking to improve the working conditions for women and children in the "Third World," as well as those of western workers, their efforts should be directed away from an attempt to impose labor standards and towards a support for the organization of labor rights. Any attempt to devise acceptable labor standards at an international level which takes no account of the forces of inclusion and exclusion with local labor movements is, she further argues, likely to represent the interests of the powerful at the expense of those of the weak.

O'Hara presents the first general history of Britons' relationship with the surrounding oceans from 1600 to the present day. This all-encompassing account covers individual seafarers, ship-borne migration, warfare and the maritime economy, as well as the British people's maritime ideas and self perception throughout the centuries.

South Asia’s diaspora is among the world’s largest and most widespread, and it is growing exponentially. It is estimated that over 25 million persons of Indian descent live abroad; and many more millions have roots in other countries of the subcontinent, in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There are 3 million South Asians in the UK and approximately the same number resides in North America. South Asians are an extremely significant presence in Southeast Asia and Africa, and increasingly visible in the Middle East. This inter-disciplinary handbook on the South Asian diaspora brings together contributions by leading scholars and rising stars on different aspects of its history, anthropology and geography, as well as its contemporary political and socio-cultural implications. The Handbook is split into five main sections, with chapters looking at mobile South Asians in the early modern world before moving on to discuss diaspora in relation to empire, nation, nation state and the neighbourhood, and globalisation and culture. Contributors highlight how South Asian diaspora has influenced politics, business, labour, marriage, family and culture. This much needed and pioneering venture provides an invaluable reference work for students, scholars and policy makers interested in South Asian Studies.

Bengal has long been one of the key centres of civilisation and culture in the Indian subcontinent. However, Bengali identity – "Bengaliness" – is complicated by its long history of evolution, the fact that Bengal is now divided between India and Bangladesh, and by virtue of a very large international diaspora from both parts of Bengal. This book explores a wide range of issues connected with Bengali identity. Amongst other subjects, it considers the special problems arising as a result of the division of Bengal, and concludes by demonstrating that there are many factors which make for the idea of a Bengali identity.

Endogamy, the custom forbidding marriage outside one's social class, is central to social history. This study considers the factors determining who married whom, whether partner selection changed over the past three hundred years and regional differences between Europe and South America.

The title of Beyond the Line refers to the imaginary "Line" drawn between North and South, a division established by the Peace Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. This is an early modern time and Eurocentric construction, according to which the southern oceanic world has long been taken as symbol of expansionist philosophies and practices. An obvious motivation for changing this "Line" division is the growing influence of the "Global South" in the contemporary economic and political setting. However, another motivation for changing opinions in regard to the "Line" is equally important. We observe an emergent consciousness of the pivotal role of the oceanic world for human life. This requires the reformulation of former views and raises numerous questions. A diversity of connections comes to the mind, which demands the composition of a catalogue of case studies with an oceanic horizon. Through this operation, different problems are being linked together. Which problems encounter historians with their research on fishes in the archives? How to trace records about pirates of non-European descent in the Indian Ocean? Which role play the Oceans as mediators for labor migrations, not only of the Black Atlantic but also of people moving from Asia to Africa and vice versa? What do we know about workers on the oceans and their routes? When considering oceans as "contact zones," with which criteria can their influence in different literary texts be analyzed? Is it possible to study nationalisms taking into account these transoceanic relationships? And how do artists address these questions in their use of the media? Against the background of this catalogue of oceanic questions, "old" stories are told anew. Sometimes, their cultural stereotypes are recycled to criticize political and social situations. Or, in other cases, they are adopted for elaborating alternative options. In this sense, the contributions concentrate on countries like India, Kenya, Angola, or Brazil and cover different academic fields. A variety of objects and situations are explored, which have been and still are determinant for the construction of cultural narratives in view of the modified relationship with the geographically southern oceanic regions.