Firangi: strangers, turned into Indians. Life as an ethnographical experiment

Abstract

Various groups of the migrants to Indian subcontinent, as well as individual travelers, who came and settle down here, constitutes a peculiar phenomenon of so called firangi. They are strangers, foreigners, mostly from Western world, who have adjusted themselves to the local cuisine, day-to-day life, climate, who have made their home here, who created social contacts and professional set-up. This people became a part of various social strata – elite (as it is nicely described by William Dalrymple in «White Mughals», 2002) and low and marginal groups. Some of them became healers, courtesans, mendicants etc (a subject of a book «The First Firangis» by J.Gill Harris, 2015). The specific feature of firangi as such is it’s hybrid and fluid identity. While assuming many typical element of the local social and cultural ethos, changing their names and habits, still they remained alien. This was among firangi the most innovative changes happened; science, art, architecture, business, politics of today’s India largely contributed by the activity of various firangis. Their biographies shows many instances of «ethnographic experimenting», happened while exploring and managing local social and cultural norms and outlook.

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