'Pravasi Really Means Absence': Gulf-Pravasis as Spectral Figures in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People. Issue 2 (3rd March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Menon, Priya
• Is Part Of: South Asia. Volume 43:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 185
• Page End: 198
• Publication Date: 2020-03-03
• Subjects: Absence -- Deepak Unnikrishnan -- emigrant literature from Gulf Cooperation Council countries -- Gulf diaspora -- Kerala -- pravasi -- temporary people; South Asia -- Periodicals; South Asia -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 954.005
• DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2020.1719628
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0085-6401

Abstract

Abstract: Deepak Unnikrishnan's debut text, Temporary People, attempts to explore certain vulnerabilities and anxieties of transience that accompany emigrants to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, where citizenship is not an option. By representing one of the largest Gulf diaspora in contemporary history—the Keralan emigrants or pravasis —as spectral figures and as absence-presences that signal a non-present presence in the Gulf, Unnikrishnan's book attempts to retrieve and register their occulted histories on the Gulf landscape. In particular, this article explores how, by creating a Keralan Gulf- pravasi spectre, Unnikrishnan critically engages with a more varied version of Gulf diasporic experience and, therefore, a more complex definition of emigration itself.