Anchored in Motion. One past, many presents
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2026-01-28
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en
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This thesis explores how layered histories of migration and displacement shape transgenerational memory, silence, and identity formation among Hindu-Surinamese descendants in the Netherlands. Instead of viewing migration as a one-way movement from origin to destination, it conceptualizes diaspora as an ongoing, relational process marked by movement, interruption, return, and re-embedding across time and place. Drawing on diaspora and transnational theories, the study shows how belonging and meaning are continuously negotiated across generations and social contexts.
The research is based on multi-year qualitative ethnography, including in-depth interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, and engagement with archival and educational materials. Attention is given both to what participants express and to what remains unspoken, treating silence as analytically significant rather than absence. Using concepts such as postmemory and transgenerational transmission, the thesis examines how colonial histories of indentured labour continue to inform contemporary experiences of identity and belonging.
By focusing on everyday practices, rituals, and family narratives, the study demonstrates how silence and audibility function as relational forms of transmission shaped by family dynamics and structures of colonial erasure. It contributes to migration and diaspora studies by framing migration as a continuing condition and by highlighting the roles of embodied memory, in-between spaces, and silence in postcolonial diasporic life
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen