Diasporic Kinship: Indentured laborers and the archaeology of relations in Mauritius

Abstract

This article explores the material and social relations of Indian Ocean indentured laborers in post-emancipation Mauritius. Shifting away from traditional identity categories used in archaeology, I draw on queer and diasporic frameworks to examine shared consumption practices of indentured laborers who lived and worked at Bras d’Eau, a nineteenth-century sugar estate. Through the concepts of kala pani (black waters) and jahaji-rishte (ship-relations), this article explores how laborers formed kinship bonds, negotiated caste, and expressed intimacy through everyday practices around food and watery substances. By analyzing domestic material culture and household spaces it reveals how these objects were used to reinforce social boundaries or deepen kinship ties. It concludes that while the structured caste hierarchies were mostly discarded in the diaspora, the embodied practices of purity and relationality manifested in the ways people interacted with one another in domestic spaces. The article challenges conventional notions of nuclear families and mononormative interpretations of households. Ultimately, the study argues for a rethinking of material culture to understand how social relations were materially expressed in the context of diaspora and labor migration.