African Continuities in South Asia: Enriching the Political, Economic and Cultural Landscape – By Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya
Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, PhD, FRAS
Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London
Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
Co-hosted by the ArtsLab Heritage, Urban Studies, and Development Lab and the TRS Research Cluster Religion, Challenge and Change
Date: Wednesday, 16 October 2024
Time: 16:00–17:30
Venue: 4 Professors’ Square, Upper Seminar Room 305, University of Glasgow
Zoom link for remote participation: https://uofglasgow.zoom.us
Abstract
Whilst Africans migrated freely across the Indian Ocean eastwards, our episteme is mostly of involuntary movement of enslaved Africans. Notwithstanding, Africans ruled two Indian states until after India’s independence. In contemporary India, Afrodescendants are dispersed throughout several states, and integrated into a multilingual multiethnic milieu. In the southern Indian state of Karnataka, for example, their agency is manifested through entrepreneurships of Sidis (name by which most Indians of African descent are known today) who have benefitted from the Scheduled Tribe status and Special Area Games (SAG), a sports promotion scheme of the Sports Authority of India (New Delhi). In neighbouring Sri Lanka, as public spaces become arenas to display cultural heritage, an Afrodescent community have negotiated a space for themselves through manja, chant-like singing accompanied by remembered rhythms and embodied dance movements. Narrations of their oral histories include stories of their African ancestors serving the colonists as soldiers. Inevitably, enslavement is also part of their histories. The status of the soldiers, however, is uncertain given the longue durée over which African soldiers are visible in the historical record. Three forms of music and dance play out the African-Asian connections – kaffrinha, manja, baila. Multiple narratives of Africans emerge through frescoes and the cultural landscape. Although the fates of Afrodescendants in contemporary South Asia vary, they share common problems as small minoritiesb in multiethnic countries. This presentation considers the variety of ways Afrodescendants have empowered themselves and enriched the political, economic and cultural landscape of South Asia.
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Biography
Professor Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya (PhD, FRAS) is a Senior Associate at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Her work and research cuts across several disciplines—history, sociology, performing arts, literature and language. She is a Discretionary Associate at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, a Visiting Professor at the University of the Visual & Performing Arts, Colombo, Sri Lanka and a Collaborative Researcher, Department of Sociology, University of Colombo. She published
many books and articles on Sri Lankan history, cultures, and languages. Her most recent publication is Global Portuguese: Literary, Historical, Sociolinguistic and Anthropological Approaches, co-edited with Stefan Halikowski-Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2024). Among her numerous publications, are articles and book chapters on the connected history of Africa and South Asia: De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. Safeguarding Afro-Sri Lankan Intangible Cultural Heritage. In: Sustaining Support for Intangible Cultural Heritage. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Eds: Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira and Gregory Hansen. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2022).
De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. Africa in South Asia: Hybridity in Sri Lankan Kaffrinha. South Asian History and Culture (2020) 11(4): 390-406. De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. Indians of African Descent: Emerging Roles and New Identities. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology & Heritage 4(1): 1-18 (2015). De Silva Jayasuriya, Shihan. Postcolonial Innovations in Sri Lankan Popular Music: Dynamics of Kaffrinha and Baila. International Journal of the Institute of Ethnic Studies Sri Lanka II: 1: 1-29 (2013).
Image and source:
Nawab Ibrahim Mohammad Yakut Khan II of Sachin (1833–1873)
https://commons.wikimedia.org
