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New Approaches to Asian History
Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia
Migration is at the heart of Asian history. For centuries migrants have tracked the routes and seas of their ancestors – merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and sailors – along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Over the last 150 years, however, migration within Asia and beyond has been greater than at any other time in history. Sunil S. Amrith's engaging and deeply informative book crosses a vast terrain, from the Middle East to India and China, tracing the history of modern migration against the background of empires, their dissolution, and the onset of modernity. Animated by the voices of Asian migrants, it tells the stories of those forced to flee from war and revolution, and those who left their homes and their families in search of a better life. These stories of Asian diasporas can be joyful or poignant, but they all speak of an engagement with new landscapes and new peoples. Migration has been central to making Asian societies as complex and diverse as they are today.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionChina
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
3 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Sunil Amrith
14 books39 followersSunil Amrith is Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History, and a Director of the Joint Center for History and Economics.
Sunil Amrith grew up in Singapore, and received a B.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of Cambridge. He was a research fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge (2004–2006) and taught modern Asian history at Birkbeck College of the University of London (2006–2014) prior to joining the faculty of Harvard University, where he is currently Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and a professor of history. He is also a director of the Harvard Center for History and Economics. His additional publications include Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930–65 (2006) and Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (co-editor, 2014).
His research is on the trans-regional movement of people, ideas, and institutions, and has focused most recently on the Bay of Bengal as a region connecting South and Southeast Asia. Amrith's areas of particular interest include the history of migration, environmental history, and the history of public health. He is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and received the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities.
Sunil Amrith is a historian exploring migration in South and Southeast Asia and its role in shaping present-day social and cultural dynamics. His focus on migration, rather than political forces such as colonial empires and the formation of modern nations, demonstrates that South Asia (primarily India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (including Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore) are tied by centuries of movement of people and goods around and across the Bay of Bengal.
In Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (2011) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013), Amrith combines the theoretical frameworks of oceanic and environmental history with archival, ethnographic, and visual research to chart how migration transformed individuals, families, and communities. Using narratives and records left by coastal traders, merchants, and migrants, he evokes the lives of ordinary Indians who made homes in new lands across the bay. Amrith's examination of the emergence of diverse, multiethnic coastal communities sheds new light on the social and political consequences of colonization. Colonialism diminished some of the intimate cultural, social, and economic connections among the peoples of coastal areas while enabling new ones. Many bonds finally snapped during decolonization, however, when defining national boundaries and national identity became the priority.
Amrith's analysis of the forces driving migration in Crossing the Bay of Bengal takes into account the ways in which climatic patterns around the bay defined the lives of migrants and coastal residents. He will expand on this work in his current project on the history of environmental change in Asia, focusing particularly on the monsoon in the context of a changing climate. Amrith is leading a reorientation of South and Southeast Asian history and opening new avenues for understanding the region's place in global history.
Amrith's most recent book is Unruly Waters (Basic Books and Penguin UK), a history of the struggle to understand and control water in modern South Asia. His previous book, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Harvard University Press, 2013) was awarded the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History in 2014. He is also the author of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Decolonizing International Health: South and Southeast Asia, 1930-1965 (Palgrave, 2006), as well as articles in journals including the American Historical Review, Past and Present, and Economic and Political Weekly.
Amrith sits on the editorial boards of Modern Asian Studies and is one of the series editors of the Cambr
Sunil Amrith grew up in Singapore, and received a B.A. (2000) and Ph.D. (2005) from the University of Cambridge. He was a research fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge (2004–2006) and taught modern Asian history at Birkbeck College of the University of London (2006–2014) prior to joining the faculty of Harvard University, where he is currently Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and a professor of history. He is also a director of the Harvard Center for History and Economics. His additional publications include Decolonizing International Health: India and Southeast Asia, 1930–65 (2006) and Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (co-editor, 2014).
His research is on the trans-regional movement of people, ideas, and institutions, and has focused most recently on the Bay of Bengal as a region connecting South and Southeast Asia. Amrith's areas of particular interest include the history of migration, environmental history, and the history of public health. He is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and received the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities.
Sunil Amrith is a historian exploring migration in South and Southeast Asia and its role in shaping present-day social and cultural dynamics. His focus on migration, rather than political forces such as colonial empires and the formation of modern nations, demonstrates that South Asia (primarily India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (including Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore) are tied by centuries of movement of people and goods around and across the Bay of Bengal.
In Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (2011) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013), Amrith combines the theoretical frameworks of oceanic and environmental history with archival, ethnographic, and visual research to chart how migration transformed individuals, families, and communities. Using narratives and records left by coastal traders, merchants, and migrants, he evokes the lives of ordinary Indians who made homes in new lands across the bay. Amrith's examination of the emergence of diverse, multiethnic coastal communities sheds new light on the social and political consequences of colonization. Colonialism diminished some of the intimate cultural, social, and economic connections among the peoples of coastal areas while enabling new ones. Many bonds finally snapped during decolonization, however, when defining national boundaries and national identity became the priority.
Amrith's analysis of the forces driving migration in Crossing the Bay of Bengal takes into account the ways in which climatic patterns around the bay defined the lives of migrants and coastal residents. He will expand on this work in his current project on the history of environmental change in Asia, focusing particularly on the monsoon in the context of a changing climate. Amrith is leading a reorientation of South and Southeast Asian history and opening new avenues for understanding the region's place in global history.
Amrith's most recent book is Unruly Waters (Basic Books and Penguin UK), a history of the struggle to understand and control water in modern South Asia. His previous book, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Harvard University Press, 2013) was awarded the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History in 2014. He is also the author of Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and Decolonizing International Health: South and Southeast Asia, 1930-1965 (Palgrave, 2006), as well as articles in journals including the American Historical Review, Past and Present, and Economic and Political Weekly.
Amrith sits on the editorial boards of Modern Asian Studies and is one of the series editors of the Cambr
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 1, 2016
I read the author’s history of migration around the Bay of Bengal first; this book is a higher-level look at migration trends across Asia broadly, although the primary focus is the movement of Chinese and Indian populations (internally and internationally).
The book proceeds chronologically, identifying the period from 1850-1930 as the peak of mass migration; the period from the 1930s through the post-World War II era as one of severed migration networks and more conflict-driven displacement; the period from the 1950s to the 1970s as one of where post-colonial Asian states consolidated power and further defined and enforced their borders, but where economic development spurred greater rural-to-urban migration; and the period from the 1970s to the present as one where globalization, the growth of the service sector and decline of the agricultural sector, and the rise of China and the Gulf states as economic engines, have all driven increased labor migration.
While for the most part Asian migration mirrors that of migration patterns more broadly, the author does argue that there was an relatively greater trend of circulatory migration (“sojourning” with the intent to return to the home), spurred in part by the fact that many of the destination countries barred migrants from ever fully integrating or attaining citizenship.
Although it’s covering a large area of space and time in a compressed fashion, this was a good starting point for thinking about the issue, and has a helpful annotated bibliography at the end.
The book proceeds chronologically, identifying the period from 1850-1930 as the peak of mass migration; the period from the 1930s through the post-World War II era as one of severed migration networks and more conflict-driven displacement; the period from the 1950s to the 1970s as one of where post-colonial Asian states consolidated power and further defined and enforced their borders, but where economic development spurred greater rural-to-urban migration; and the period from the 1970s to the present as one where globalization, the growth of the service sector and decline of the agricultural sector, and the rise of China and the Gulf states as economic engines, have all driven increased labor migration.
While for the most part Asian migration mirrors that of migration patterns more broadly, the author does argue that there was an relatively greater trend of circulatory migration (“sojourning” with the intent to return to the home), spurred in part by the fact that many of the destination countries barred migrants from ever fully integrating or attaining citizenship.
Although it’s covering a large area of space and time in a compressed fashion, this was a good starting point for thinking about the issue, and has a helpful annotated bibliography at the end.
October 23, 2020
A useful introduction migration theories that ambitiously tries to encapsulate migration throughout all of Asia, perhaps losing some nuances in between like of gendered migration and circular migration.
November 25, 2016
I find books of this type to be more interesting in their methodology than in their content material. Take Gibbon for example, I am not much interested in the Roman Empire, but Gibbon's treatment of the history, his judicious judgments, his ingenious methods of organization and his methods for treating so broad a period of time with exhaustive detail kept me reading through to the end (not to mention his always elegant and sometimes pompous language). I read Amrith's book for much the same reason; the idea of writing a history of migration and diaspora is a novel one, as migrants are rarely treated in the traditional historiography-- especially in the old nation-state bound historiography; I was interested to learn of the challenges that Amrith must have faced when trying to study this subject-- i.e. the fact that migrants do not leave behind much written evidence (most migrants, at least the ones he is studying here, being illiterate)-- and that in most documents, these persons are simply figures. How does one take shipping records and then construct a human story out of these (Spoiler: he recommends oral testimony which, despite the limitations of memory, gives the historian something to work with)? That is the challenge, and one to which I think Amrith admirably rises. A much recommended book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews