ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show the challenges of archiving family memory of displaced families in postcolonial India. Focusing on the Partition of India of 1947, I argue that family memory helps us understand the processes of meaning-making that families of displaced communities adopt. I argue that the family archive of refugees is always incomplete as more effort is invested in collecting resources that are needed to establish a new life in a new place. Despite their incomplete and make-shift nature, family archives, held together by family memories that are passed on to the next generation, point to ways of countering the annihilation of an earlier way of life. What lives on in the family archives of the displaced often contrasts sharply with the history of nation building that newly independent India had adopted. Far from being a nostalgic indulgence, the archives of family memories mark the displaced population’s implicit critique of the national identity bestowed by the state. Family memories represent the difficult negotiations with the processes of citizenship that displaced people face. The family archives which begin and grow at home enable us to analyse social identity and cultural practices, and challenge our understanding of local and national histories.
