Expertise, Normativity, and Scales of Belonging in the Montreal Tamil Diasporas
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BETWEEN TEXT AND TALK: EXPERTISE, NORMATIVITY, AND SCALES OF BELONGING IN THE MONTREAL TAMIL DIASPORAS by Sonia Neela Das A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in The University of Michigan 2008 Doctoral Committee: Professor Judith T. Irvine, Chair Associate Professor Barbra A. Meek Associate Professor Andrew J. Shryock Professor Thomas R. Trautmann © Sonia Neela Das 2008 Dedication To those for whom the act of speaking, writing, and belonging is vexed with uncertainty ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my committee, Judy Irvine, Andrew Shryock, and Barb Meek, as well as my cognate committee member, Tom Trautmann, and my Tamil language teacher, K. Karunakaran, for their unfailing support these past seven years. Their contributions to the fields of anthropology, history, and linguistics and their long-standing dedication to teaching and mentoring always inspire me to strive to be the best scholar, teacher, and writer possible. I would also like to acknowledge other faculty members of the University of Michigan who have played an important role in my academic progress. These include Jennifer Robertson, Webb Keane, Gillian Feeley- Harnik, Bruce Mannheim, Sharad Chari, Janet Hart, Sarah Thomason, Lesley Milroy, Pam Beddor, Fernando Coronil, Alaina Lemon, Erik Mueggler, Barbara Metcalf, Nita Kumar, Ashutosh Varshney, Jarrod Hayes, and Matt Hull. To John Mitani, Roberto Frisancho, Laura MacLatchy, and Stuart Kirsch, I would like to thank them for the opportunity to GSI their classes. I am also grateful to the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan for creating a stimulating intellectual environment in which to host the “Language and Mediation in South Asian Societies” conference and, to its participants, for the thought-provoking exchange of ideas. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Laurie Marx for being the most knowledgeable, supportive, and indispensable Graduate Coordinator at the University of Michigan. I am exceedingly grateful to all of the people in Montreal (who names must remain nameless) for assisting me during my research. This includes board members of iii the Murugan temple, the youth group and priest of the Our Lady of Deliverance mission, student leaders of CUTAM and Tamilagam, members of the UQAM Religious Studies department, Tamil language teachers, and all of the Montreal Tamil youth who openly shared their experiences with me. Without their trust and hospitality, I would not have been able to write this dissertation. I also owe my gratitude to the English Montreal School Board and the principal of “Parker” Elementary School for seeing value in my research project. To Deirdre Meintel and Patricia Lamarre of the Université de Montréal, I would like to thank them for offering me their university’s institutional resources. Finally, I would like to thank the committees of the National Science Foundation and the Canadian Studies Graduate Student Fellowship for the funding to conduct my research. I am extremely grateful to the members of the Lévesque, Bisson, Allaire, Champagne, and Trudel families for making me feel at home while I was living in Montreal. To my fellow anthropology students at the University of Michigan, thanks for an unforgettable seven years. I would also like to say a special thanks to Jennifer, Robin, Divya, Apurva, Anna, and Valerie, for being my support network in Ann Arbor this last year. And to my mom and dad, Suzanne and Asish, my brother Joel and his wife Susan, and my nieces and nephew, I would like to thank them for giving me the love and encouragement to believe in myself and for motivating me to finish what I started. Finally, I would like to thank the city of Montreal for allowing me to find Alex, and to Alex, for the love and understanding that he offers unconditionally. I have used pseudonyms to conceal the actual name of Parker Elementary School and the identities of my informants, excluding those whose work is publicly recognized in some official capacity. iv Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix List of Appendices .............................................................................................................. x List of Abbreviations and Acryonyms ............................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 A Globalizing City .......................................................................................................... 7 Montreal Tamils ............................................................................................................ 11 Language Ideologies of Talk and Text ......................................................................... 14 From Speech Communities to Scales of Belonging ..................................................... 20 Spatiotemporal Fields of Study ..................................................................................... 28 Into the Field: A Methodological Approach ................................................................. 32 Chapter 2 Tamil Mother Tongues and Literary Standards ............................................... 38 Semiotics of Text and Talk ........................................................................................... 38 Historical Narratives and Chronotopes ......................................................................... 42 Primordialist and Modernist Narratives .................................................................... 43 Icons of the Literary Standard....................................................................................... 48 Literary Standard in Pre-Modern South Asia ........................................................... 49 Tamil Colonial Philology .......................................................................................... 51 Tamil Literary Standard in Modern India ................................................................. 53 Tamil Literary Standard in Modern Sri Lanka ......................................................... 57 Icons of the Mother Tongue .......................................................................................... 62 Standardizing the Mother Tongue in India ............................................................... 65 Standardizing the Tamil Mother Tongue in Sri Lanka ............................................. 69 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter 3 Linguistic Expertise and Moral Normativity in Quebec .................................. 77 Moral Narratives of Quebec’s History .......................................................................... 79 Rule of the Catholic Church ..................................................................................... 80 v Rise of French Secular Nationalism ......................................................................... 83 Diversification of Quebec ......................................................................................... 92 Building the Nation, Embodying the Folk .................................................................... 97 Hierarchies of French and English ............................................................................ 98 Joual as Folk Language ........................................................................................... 101 Québécois French as Literary Standard .................................................................. 105 Mediated Representations of Vernacular Speech ................................................... 110 Linguistic Expertise and Moral Normativity .............................................................. 115 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 122 Chapter 4 Scales of Belonging of Montreal Tamils........................................................ 123 Tamil Migration and Settlement Patterns ................................................................... 128 Indian Tamil Migrants ............................................................................................ 130 Sri Lankan Tamil Migrants ..................................................................................... 135 Social Networks and Scales of Belonging .................................................................. 138 Ethnonational Organizations ................................................................................... 139 Religious and Caste Distinctions ............................................................................ 144 Gender Dynamics.................................................................................................... 148 Integrating Tamils into Québécois Society ................................................................