Chapter 14: Who Is An ‘Expatriate’?: Euro-American Identities, Race, and Integration in Postcolonial India

Laura, who is married and has three children, was raised in the United Kingdom, Hong-Kong, and the Philippines. With her father being employed in the hospitality industry, they frequently relocated. Laura jokes about being a gora¹ in India and calls herself an ‘expat baby.’ She knows no other way of living other than being an expat. Her vignette sharply delineates how the global map of migration has transmuted; from the rather normative ‘third world’ streams of migration from East to West, this time it is white Western citizens who are making their way to new growth economies like India and China. Unequivocally, migration from the West to East has all along existed, especially before the second world–war. For India, in previous centuries, a multitude of Europeans were settlers, visitors and colonial rulers. In contemporary India, the emphasis is on globalized work practices, where movements and mobility are no longer linear. Since the country opened its isolated economy in the 1980–90s to transnational capitalism, European, North American, and East Asian² nationals are seeking opportunities. Particularly, over the last decade, India has seen a surge in foreign nationals (Miller, 2014).³ Leaving aside the economic gains in a time of global recession, many foreigners are in India to seek out alternative lifestyles (Korpela, 2010) and re-invent careers. Nicol Foulkes and Stig Toft Madsen (2014) discuss how white Westerners now seek to include India in their personal life projects, indicating also the shifting profile of Western women, in an economically independent role via men. Significantly, women and men underscore diverse motivations for choosing India as a destination. For women like Laura, it is her ‘whiteness’ that makes her feel privileged and comfortable in India.