Paper short abstract:

In this paper I analyse how South Asian migrants accepted, adapted and rejected occupational identities ascribed to them before, during and after indenture in Suriname. I look at how distinctions of gender, caste, class, religion and age played their part.

Paper long abstract:

While the British and Dutch colonial authorities - who closely cooperated in the joint facilitation of the migration of indentured labourers to Suriname - wanted South Asian migrants to be and remain plantation labourers, these migrants often had other aspirations. In this paper I analyse how the migrants responded to the occupational identities ascribed to them through legislation, in British and Dutch colonial discourse, and by the Afro-Surinamese inhabitants in different phases of the process of immigration and settlement between 1873 and 1921. I look at how differences in gender, caste, class, religion and age enabled or hindered particular migrants in their labouring pursuits and how urban based high-caste and middle-class men became most successful. Moreover, I show how migrants dealt with competition in different social spaces such as the plantation, the countryside and the city. Sources that are analysed range from autobiographies to photographs and newspapers to the 1921 census.