This volume explores the intersections of diaspora and gender within the diasporic and Indian imagination.

Introduction: Texts and Contexts: Rethinking Gender in Kala Pani Narratives PART I: Rethinking the Kala pani: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches 1. Revisiting Literary Studies of the Indian Diaspora: Possible Strategies for a Comparatist Approach 2. 'The Sea is History': The Concept of Space in Women's Kala Pani Crossings 3. Women and Indenture: Revisiting Indian Discourses PART II: Past and Present: Revisiting the 'Sexual Contract' 4. 'Intimate Violence' and the 'Sexual Contract': Female Convicts and Marriage 'System' in Andamans, c. 1860-c.1920 5. Marriage and Man-Woman Relationship in Coolie Diaspora 6. Queer Diaspora and Hindu Rituals: Shani Mootoo's Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab PART III: Voice and Vision Redeemed 7. Constructing Narratives on both sides of the Kala Pani: The Gendered Departee and Returnee in Firmin Lacpatia's Boadour - du Gange ... à la Rivière des Roches and K. Madavane's Rue des Tisserands, Pondichéry 8. The Traces of the Silenced: Indian Indentured Women Labourers in Colonial Literature of the Réunion 9. Between Homes and Shores: Reimagining Her 'Silences' from Kalapani Crossings in Indo-Caribbean Poetry 10. Visions, Trances, and other Abnormalities of Indenture in Jahajin, The Swinging Bridge and Sea of Poppies PART IV: In Conversation with India: Memorial Narratives Inside Out 11. Popular Resolution of the Bhojpuri Women's Question: Examining the Socio-Cultural Legacy of the Bidesiya in Select Bhojpuri Films 12. Remembering Mariamman PART V: In the Writers' Own Voices Interviews with Brij V. Lal, Ananda Devi, Shani Mootoo, Peggy Mohan, Cyril Dabydeen, Davina Ittoo, Ramabai Espinet, Khal Torabully