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Refugee, Migration, Diaspora

By Prof. Sarbani Banerjee   |   IIT Roorkee
Learners enrolled: 726   |  Exam registration: 31
ABOUT THE COURSE:  The course familiarizes students with the conceptualizations of migration studies, refugee narratives and diasporic literatures. It explores the development and historical trajectories of displacement narratives through the lens of major critical theories. Through the reading of select artworks, it focuses on the causes, consequences and responses to transnational migrations. At the end of the course, students will be equipped with insights crucial for understanding migration in the global context.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students, scholars, service and non-service backgrounds.
Summary
Course Status : Upcoming
Course Type : Elective
Language for course content : English
Duration : 12 weeks
Category :
  • Humanities and Social Sciences
  • English
Credit Points : 3
Level : Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date : 20 Jan 2025
End Date : 11 Apr 2025
Enrollment Ends : 27 Jan 2025
Exam Registration Ends : 14 Feb 2025
Exam Date : 03 May 2025 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.


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Course layout

Week 1 : Introduction: Theorizing and Historicizing Migration; Defining Refugee; Migrant, Exile, Expatriate; Types and Waves of Migration; Impacts of Migration; Push and Pull factors
 
Week 2 : Politics of Space, Understanding the notions of Spatio-temporality in Migration Studies; Refugee and Heterotopia; Immigration and Integration; National and Local belongings, Repatriation and Refugee Agency; Alienation; Affect

Week 3 : Examples of recent migration and contemporary scenario related with migration- a survey
Theorizing Borderland Discourse – Understanding borderlands in a geo-political perspective, Nation-State; Border, Frontier, Territorial Divides; Understanding borderlands in a geopolitical perspective within South Asia, concepts of ‘home’ and ‘uncanny geography’  

Week 4 : Case Studies of select South Asian literary texts discussing topics such as Refugeehood, Migration; Refugee, Resistance and Survival   
India-Pakistan Border: The partition of India and Pakistan and its long-lasting impact on border communities- Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh”, Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan 
India-Bangladesh Border: Enclaves and cross-border migration issues- East and West by Sunil Ganguly, Lajja by Taslima Nasreen
India-Nepal Border: Open border policy and its socio-economic implications- Palpassa Café by Narayan Wagle 
India-Sri Lanka Border: Sinhalese-Tamil disputes and Tamil migration- Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai 
India-Myanmar Border: Migration, ethnic conflict, and refugee movements- The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh 
India-Tibet Border: Identity, Survival, Resilience-  Across Many Mountains: A Tibetan Family's Epic Journey from Oppression to Freedom by Yangzom Brauen

Week 5 : Theorizing Borderland Discourse – Understanding borderlands in a geopolitical perspective within South Asia; Nation-State; Border, Frontier, Territorial Divides, concepts of ‘home’ and ‘uncanny geography’
Through select artworks, studies Gendered borderlands, Identity politics and Body politics; Refugeehood and Gender; Displacement, Bodily Violence and Trauma; Memorialization and Nostalgia - Ismat Chughtai’s “Jadein” (Roots), Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India; Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar     

Week 6 : Diaspora and Transnationalism: Discourses and Trajectories; Major Diaspora Communities and Popular Terms in Diaspora; Romanticization, Exoticization; Double Displacement 

Week 7 : Historicizing global diaspora in different contexts with a focus on South Asian diaspora; Home and Diaspora Identity - a survey Case studies: Salman Rushdie’s ‘Imaginary Homelands’; Diaspora and Literary work- Romesh Gunesekera’s Reef, Tahnima Anam’s A Golden Age, Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography, Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag, Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight, Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions. 

Week 8 : Exploring the theme of ‘Food’ and ‘Multiculturalism’ in Diaspora:  
                Shani Mootoo’s ‘Out on Main Street’ and Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Mrs Sen’
                Introducing Digital Diaspora, Indian Digital Diaspora, Virtual Diaspora and Cyberspace in the context of South Asia - The Case of ‘TibetBoard’

Week 9 : Diaspora and Cinema - The Namesake, The Mistress of Spices, Bride and Prejudice, Christmas As Usual, Mrs. Chatterjee Versus Norway, Never Have I Ever, Bend It Like Beckham, English Vinglish; select works discussing Bollywood and Diaspora 

Week 10 : Kalapani Crossings, Indentured labour and Coolie Diaspora; Double Displacement; Ramabai Espinet The Swinging Bridge; M.G.Vassanji’s  No New Land, V.S. Naipual’s A House for Mr. Biswas 

Week 11 : Displacement of South Asian Indigenous population: Santhal tea tribes, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s “November is a month of migrations,” Regina Marandi’s Becoming Me 

Week 12 : Conclusion- Challenges and Future Scopes of Refugee Studies; Problematics of Diaspora Community Experience

Books and references

  • New Perspectives on the Indian Diaspora. Ed. Ruben Gowricharn. Routledge, 2021.
  • Jigna Desai. Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film. Routledge, 2003.
  •  E. Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona. The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford University Press, 2014.
  •  Gottfried Schweiger. Migration, Recognition and Critical Theory. Springer, 2021.

Instructor bio

Prof. Sarbani Banerjee

IIT Roorkee
Prof. Sarbani Banerjee earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Western Ontario (2015). Her areas of specialization include Postcolonial literatures and theory, Canadian literature and culture, Post-Partition Bengali literature and cinema, Diasporic literatures, and Women’s studies. She worked as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan Post Doctoral Fellow (University Grants Commission, 2017-20). Currently, she is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT, Roorkee.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: May 3, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Roorkee .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.
Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team


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