Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the construction of homeland/s and identities in Barkas,an Arabian colony in Hyderabad. Barkas is mainly inhabited by the Hadramis from Yemen. With the end of the Nizam’s era in 1956, Hadramis and many Hyderabadis lost their jobs as the Nizam’s bodyguards and treasury guards and started migrating to the Gulf countries especially from the 1970s as there was an oil boom. The main argument of this study is - as majority of the residents of Barkas identify themselves as Hadramis from Yemen ,even today,therefore, does migration to the Gulf have any relationship with the concept of homeland? Given this, the main question is how and why do different residents of Barkas construct homeland? I have looked at the multiple perceptions of people constructing homeland differently and attempted to explore the relationship between construction of homeland and hostland. The paper concludes that meaning of home keeps changing post migration to the Gulf and also across generations. It is contextual in nature. The meaning of home changes also because of the blurred of fuzzy identities that occur in an individual’s life with the constant movement from one country to the other and back to his/her own country.