My research and dissertation uses the history of the South Asian diaspora in Southern Rhodesia as a lens to explore the unique position that Rhodesia held within the British Empire, as well as investigate the often messy and contradictory ways that racial segregation played out on the ground. My work therefore also has implications for transregional histories of the South Asian diaspora and Indian Ocean studies, which use the transnational frame of diasporic identity as a model for reimagining the limits of a national identity. The history of Indians in Rhodesia thus draws from the distinction between citizens and subjects to consider the implications of British subjecthood and Indian citizenship within the framework of the British Empire for Rhodesians of Indian origin, and the position they held not only within the colonial state, but outside its borders too. My project ultimately combines local, national, regional, and international narratives to analyze the complex and exceptional ways in which the histories of colonialism and segregation operated in Rhodesia.
