Connective Afrasian Sea memories: Transregional imaginaries, memory politics, and complexities of national “belonging”

Abstract

This article focuses on memories of South Asian Kenyans and their claims to full citizenship as Kenyans through acknowledgment of their role in Kenya’s past. By focusing on memory claims and memory practices of the South Asian diaspora, it unravels complexities and tensions of scale (local, national, transregional, transnational). It adds new insights into complexities of national “belonging” in an entangled world by demonstrating how people operate as citizens within states and how memory politics are played out at nation-state level and how, simultaneously, the lived experience, affiliations, and shared memories of particular groups transcend the national scale or operate at a scale below it. This article’s seven sections focus on connected histories (a brief history of the Indian Ocean), connective memory research (explicating multi-sited methodology and using brief examples of Cape Malays and Siddis), and connective memory practice addressing memory practices in the South Asian diaspora in Kenya that consciously engage with entangled histories.