Home>News
and Events
Title: The Search for National
Identity amid Reinforced Diasporic Links and Reinvented
Roots: The Case of Mauritius
Where
& When: Tuesday, January 31
Eggers 341
12:30-1:50 pm
Type
of Activity: Public Lecture
Speaking: Gulshan
Sooklall, Fulbright Scholar and PhD candidate,
University of Mauritius
Summary: Mauritius is a small island which
owes its
population to the wave of slavery and indenture during its
colonization in the last three centuries. After its
independence in 1968 till now, one of the major challenges
in the socio-cultural realms has been to synchronize the
different ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic groups
in the island towards the making of a multicultural nation.
This synchronization however, is proving to be increasingly
difficult in the last two decades whereby along with the
effects of globalization the island has been experiencing
subtle aftershock effects of transnational communalism and
seen fractions of the population making efforts to reinvent
roots or simply reinforce them with the ethnic or national
elements in the countries of ancestral origin.
In this
lecture Mr. Sooklall will make an account of the factors
that may prevent the population (particularly the future
generations) from establishing the island as the primary
cultural home by increasing the gaps hence, making the
search for a national identity more complex.
Sponsorship: South Asia Center
Sponsorship: South Asia Center
