ARI Working Paper Series

In this paper we explore what happens to a tightly bounded translocal village when the second generation rebels. The news story above encapsulates a number of threads we would like to discuss in this paper. The article was published in one of Tamil Nadu’s leading newspapers, the Dina Thandi, which has a readership of some 10 million. It reports the wedding of a Tamil and an Australian girl that took place in the town of Pattukkottai, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu recently. This was no ordinary wedding; the participants are transnational as well as cross-cultural. More importantly, the story was covered by the newspaper following a phone call from an established and respected man in the village who wanted to ensure the wedding was publicly sanctioned.