Home,homeland,homepage: belonging and the Indian-American web

Abstract

This article critically examines the politics of home, homeland and homepage on what it calls the ‘Indian-American’ web. It demonstrates how the Indian-American web emerged during the 1990s by targeting non-resident Indians (NRIs) and persons of Indian origin (PIOs) in the United States. NRI refers to an Indian citizen who resides outside India, while PIO refers to a foreign citizen who claims an ‘Indian’ origin. The central argument of the article is that the web disrupts hegemonic notions of NRI and PIO identities by articulating diverse imaginations of ‘home’, such as household, homeland and homepage, to the cultural, economic and political discourses of nation, family and community. In the process, the web foregrounds the contestations over ‘old’ and ‘new’ identities within the NRI and PIO communities in the United States.