Migration theory emphasizes the various ways in which social networks based on family, kin, and ethnic ties are established by expatriate communities in response to new political, economic, and social circumstances. Missing from this genre of research is insight into how gender interacts with ethnicity and class in the process of migration and settlement. Much research has overlooked the importance of international migrations within the Third World, focusing instead on labor migration from economically less well developed to more developed countries. This research project will examine the abrupt and large population movement of Indians in Tanzania in the period 1960- 1990 as a means of understanding the complex processes of large scale migration within the Third World. The study will highlight how groups of migrants were affected by and responded to geographical differences in social, economic, and political conditions associated with migration. Data from archives in both India and Tanzania will be combined with personal interviews and participant observation of migrants to test hypotheses relating gender, class, caste, age, and family structure to particular migration streams to and within Tanzania. Within the past century, and particularly since the breakup of colonial empires, there have been substantial migrations of people into Africa. One of the most dynamic situations has involved the migration of Asian Indians into and with the country of Tanzania. This project will not only provide documentation of this phenomenon, but it will also explain how such disruptions help to redefine ethnic boundaries, gender relations, and class hierarchies under changing political and economic conditions.
