Ethnobotany and animals in Girmitiya diaspora: explorations from the Caribbean

Diasporas presuppose that emigrants establish an ethnic group in their newly adopted homelands while realigning with their motherland. The glue of this bonding is presumed to be language, religion, nationalism, and lived culture. However, this paper argues that ethnic communities are enabled by Indian ethnobotany and animals (IEA). The paper argues, first, that IEA served as a resource to preserve ethnic foods, rituals, and identities; second, that IEA were crucial ingredients in the emergence of the Girmitiya community as they served as inputs to several domains of communal life; and third, that the IEA represented a highly specific diaspora link between the Girmitiya communities with India. Using the case of Caribbean societies, the paper focuses on the relationship between Indian nature and culture and, by so doing, addresses a void in the study of the Girmitiya ethnogenesis, the constitution of the Girmitiya diaspora, and the globalisation of Indian nature.