Coolitude Culinary Memory as Cultural Expression Among Indentures a Gastrocolonial Approach in Khal Torabully's Selected Poems

The present research study focuses on how food can be interpreted as a sort of indentured resistance in Khal Torabully's selected poems. The idea of Gastrocolonial is used as analysis of the various manifestations of food memories, spices, and markets as symbols of cultural continuity for Indian indentured laborers. The poems suggest the historical interrelationship between slavery, indenture and colonial trading networks. It highlights the subjective lives of migrants that transcended the Kala Pani. It provides a way of archiving identities that are facing displacement and cultural erasure. Tamarind, saffron, cumin, coriander, salt, roots and stoves become strong emblems in negotiating loss, exile and belonging by the indentured subject. The study finds a gaze at sites of gastrocolonialism in such poems reveals the redirection of the agency of agricultural goods. Also shows how eating acts as a form of resistance to colonization, to the exploitation of human labor. In conclusion, Torabully re-imagines the erased past of indentured communities and by re-invoking food in relation to these histories reveals and celebrates the diasporic, inter-cultural, memory and taste of resistance. Keywords: cultural erasure, displacement, exile, gastrocolonialism, indentured laborers.

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Publication Details

Journal
Emirati Journal of Education and Literature
Published
2026-10-31
DOI
https://doi.org/10.54878/42znk996
Primary Topic
Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
Type
article
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article

Coolitude Culinary Memory as Cultural Expression Among Indentures a Gastrocolonial Approach in Khal Torabully's Selected Poems

Javeria Kiran Kiran
2 links
Emirati Journal of Education and Literature
Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
article

Coolitude Culinary Memory as Cultural Expression Among Indentures a Gastrocolonial Approach in Khal Torabully's Selected Poems

Javeria Kiran Kiran
article en

Abstract

The present research study focuses on how food can be interpreted as a sort of indentured resistance in Khal Torabully's selected poems. The idea of Gastrocolonial is used as analysis of the various manifestations of food memories, spices, and markets as symbols of cultural continuity for Indian indentured laborers. The poems suggest the historical interrelationship between slavery, indenture and colonial trading networks. It highlights the subjective lives of migrants that transcended the Kala Pani. It provides a way of archiving identities that are facing displacement and cultural erasure. Tamarind, saffron, cumin, coriander, salt, roots and stoves become strong emblems in negotiating loss, exile and belonging by the indentured subject. The study finds a gaze at sites of gastrocolonialism in such poems reveals the redirection of the agency of agricultural goods. Also shows how eating acts as a form of resistance to colonization, to the exploitation of human labor. In conclusion, Torabully re-imagines the erased past of indentured communities and by re-invoking food in relation to these histories reveals and celebrates the diasporic, inter-cultural, memory and taste of resistance. Keywords: cultural erasure, displacement, exile, gastrocolonialism, indentured laborers.

Emirati Journal of Education and LiteratureVol. 4(2)
Lahore College for Women University (PK)
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
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