Landscape and the Bengali Diaspora

Bengalis have been great travellers for centuries and are famous for recreating their way of life wherever they go. This book critically analyses skilled Bengali migration within and beyond India and looks at landscapes created by the Bengali diaspora beyond the terrain of their homeland, ranging from those of nostalgia and imagination (Durga Puja/Saraswati Puja) to those of subjugation and loss of identity.

This book demonstrates the relationship between landscape and diaspora in terms of perception, imagination, space and place, ethnicity, race, caste, and class. With case studies from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Dehra Dun, Oxford, Aberdeen, New York, and the Bay Area (USA), it brings together themes like evolution of the Bengali diaspora, transnationalism and identity, stratification and segregation, urban social space, adaptation and assimilation, and questions of discrimination from other communities.

Drawing on ethnographic accounts of over 300 skilled Bengalis, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of diaspora studies, urban studies, ethnic studies, migration studies, geography, sociology, history, and political studies.

Aditi Chatterji has been a Senior Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi and is an honorary associate at the Centre for Urban Economic Studies University of Calcutta, India. She is an urban, social, cultural, and historical geographer, has an MLitt in geography from the University of Oxford, UK and a PhD in geography from the University of Calcutta. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers and a Life Fellow of the Geographical Society of India. She is currently working on her fourth postdoctoral project at the Centre for Urban Economic Studies. Her publications include The Changing Landscapes of the Indian Hill Stations: Power Culture and Tradition (1997), Contested Landscapes: The Story of Darjeeling (2007), Ethnicity Migration and the Urban Landscape of Kolkata (2009), The Making of the Indian Landscape (2014). She has published over 265 articles in English newspapers, including The Statesman, The Telegraph, The Economic Times, And The Hindustan Times.